Mega Millions players will get slightly better odds and should start seeing more billion-dollar jackpots, but at a cost—literally—with tickets for the multistate lottery jumping in price to $5, the AP reports. The price for playing Mega Millions more than doubled for drawings starting with Tuesday's, going from $2 to $5, but lottery officials are betting that the swollen jackpots they're expecting will catch the public's attention and lead to an accompanying surge in sales. "People really want big jackpots," said Joshua Johnston, the Washington state lottery director who heads the Mega Millions game. "We expect to see a sales lift on this."
Lottery officials expect the price jump to increase revenue from the twice-weekly game, enabling them to improve the odds of winning the jackpot from 1 in 303 million to 1 in 290 million. The higher ticket price also means the jackpot can start at $50 million, rather than the previous $20 million, and that the grand prize is expected to grow more quickly. Each time there isn't a big winner, the jackpot will jump by a larger amount. Officials expect it will more frequently top the $1 billion threshold that draws extra attention—and bigger sales. Under the new rules, prizes for tickets not matching all six numbers also will increase, with non-jackpot winners now guaranteed at least $10.
Each ticket also will include a randomly assigned multiplier that can increase the prize by up to 10 times, a previous add-on feature that cost an extra $1. The multiplier doesn't apply to a jackpot. The new rules have two main goals: to address what the industry calls "jackpot fatigue," in which jackpots must reach staggering heights before many people will buy tickets, and to differentiate Mega Millions from Powerball, the other lottery draw game played across the country. Once remarkably similar, the two games now will have some key differences, with Powerball's ticket prices and smallest prizes both being lower than Mega Millions—which will become the country's most expensive lottery draw game.
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