In the coming months, Mega Millions tickets will more than double their current price, but lottery officials said the move would go a long way toward increasing the number of winners more frequently and significantly increasing the winnings.
Officials said tickets will cost $5 starting next April, $3 more than they currently do. The move will be part of other tweaks to the Mega Millions game that will result in much bigger prizes and better odds of winning. Washington Lottery Chairman Joshua Johnston, the head of the group that oversees Mega Millions, said spending just $5 to “become a millionaire or a multimillionaire is a pretty good thing.”
Both Mega Millions and Powerball can be purchased in 45 US states and the US Virgin Islands and Washington DC, although the latter is also sold in Puerto Rico. Powerball officials have assured that there is no plan to increase the cost of their tickets or modify the odds of winning the game, so they will continue to cost $2.
Mega Millions is hoping that as revenue increases, the game's current odds of 1 in 302.6 million will change a bit, and more people will be able to win a larger jackpot, which will encourage people to play even more often. The goal is to increase revenue for the lotteries and put more money into state lotteries that provide a lot of money for public services.
The game changes come at a time when players are buying fewer tickets while jackpots are much higher and eventual winners are being announced. Long lines at convenience stores to buy $500 million tickets were once common, but now the $1.000 billion jackpots are less in demand among players.
Jackpot figures may also be affected by falling interest rates. On various billboards, lotteries are reporting that annual fees for jackpots that are distributed by an investment fund over several years may cause interest rates to fall.
Given that interest rates are currently high, annuity jackpots have also significantly increased the cash prizes that game winners prefer to receive. Should those interest rates go down, so will annuity jackpots, making the jackpot seem a bit more normal.
Joshua said they did not take into account the drop in interest rates in the changes, but rather the main intention was to distinguish Mega Millions from Powerball and thus help customers become more interested in these games that they can now ignore.
In the second price increase since the game was founded in 2002, players will now see more chances to win a Mega Millions prize even though tickets will cost $XNUMX starting next April. More details about any changes will be provided in the coming months.
