Probability of Winning the Mega Millions Jackpot
1 in 302,575,350
Per-event probability in US
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350 per ticket, slightly worse than Powerball.
The Mega Millions lottery has jackpot odds of exactly 1 in 302,575,350 per ticket, making it slightly harder to win than Powerball. Players choose 5 numbers from 1-70 and a Mega Ball from 1-25. The largest Mega Millions jackpot was $1.537 billion in 2018.
The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are about 1 in 24. The Megaplier option multiplies non-jackpot prizes by 2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x for an additional $1. Even with the Megaplier, the expected value remains negative for players.
To illustrate how unlikely winning is: if you bought one ticket per week, you would need to play for approximately 5.8 million years to have a reasonable chance of winning. The probability is so small that driving to buy the ticket typically poses a greater risk to your life than the potential payoff justifies from a purely mathematical standpoint. However, lotteries do fund state education and other public programs, so there is a social benefit to participation.
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