In April, the price of a Mega Millions lottery ticket will jump from $2 to $5, a change that officials say will come with better odds, bigger wins and more money for California public schools.
The price hike is driven by a desire to generate bigger and faster growing jackpots and to differentiate Mega Millions from other lottery games, Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, told The Times.
“Sales really start to ramp up around [jackpots of] $700 million, $800 million and they really go wild when they hit a billion dollars, so obviously there’s an appetite out there for those eye-popping jackpots,” Johnston said.
Mega Millions will also be rejigging odds of winning — from one in 302.6 million — to something slightly less astronomical.
Johnston said the precise details on the new odds will be released in February, but noted that they will include decreasing the number of balls used in the drawings. The adjusted Mega Millions odds will be better than those for winning Powerball, which are currently 1 in 292.2 million, he added.
In addition, Mega Millions will add a built-in multiplier to every ticket, automatically improving non-jackpot wins by as much as 10 times. And, the game will eliminate break-even tickets, meaning that when a player wins, they’ll always win more than the cost of the ticket.
“With the new game changes, we’re going to be creating more billionaires, because the jackpot is growing faster,” said Johnston. “And with that embedded multiplier, we’re going to be creating more millionaires each week, because there’s more money going out.”
Mega Millions and its lottery compatriot Powerball are sold in 45 states and overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Assn. There are currently no plans to increase the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket, the association told The Times.
Mega Millions has produced six winners of billion-dollar jackpots since it was launched in 2002, according to game officials. Ticket prices jumped from $1 to $2 in 2017 and since then the game has produced more than 1,200 millionaires — an average of three millionaires a week.
Money raised by Mega Million ticket sales is predicted to increase by 25% once the price hike is introduced, Johnston said.
A portion of proceeds from all lottery ticket sales go to schools or other charitable causes in each state. In California, 40% of sales go to supporting public schools, according to the California Lottery.
About 80 cents from every Mega Million ticket sold in California now goes to schools. In April, that will jump to around $2 per ticket, explained Carolyn Becker, spokesperson for the California Lottery.
“We think this is a winning proposition for both our players and our mission to raise supplemental funding for public education,” California Lottery Director Harjinder K. Shergill Chima said in a statement. “With bigger jackpots that grow even faster, and better odds for players, we expect better sales for Mega Millions, and in turn, more money for schools.”
Becker noted that in California, the Mega Millions price change is subject to approval by the California Lottery Commission at an upcoming meeting. But she said she has “every confidence” the commission will agree the change is a good idea.
