Let's roll again lol.

The FRENZY IS ON!! The local media here in Baltimore was talking about Friday's drawing jackpot on every newscast and interviewing players at convience stores. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Jackpot go to $600 million before the next drawing. Of course, I'm going to get my tickets tomorrow.

It will hit around the 600 mil mark, I have the premonition, just wish I had the winning series of numbers to hit it!. Best of luck folks!

Roll baby roll !!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday 13, December: 19-24-26-27-70 and mega ball 12 were the drawing numbers. Plus the megaplier was 2 and not 3. Cool, edited already.

My last numbers were 5-12-28-51-74 and mega ball (13) My picks!

Im thining the next set of numbers are going to be a weird combination. So i will do my best to pick the most messed up combinations possible! WIsh me luck! LOL

I want to see the line at the Terribles lottery store at the Las Vegas/California border.

Season's Greetings Goteki54,

     They wanted a Billion Dollar jackpot, and I think they'll get it just before Christmas..........after that drawing, then we'll have ourselves some winners.

Dreamer,

More money than I could ever dream of. Dream and dream.

Mine were 2-3-42-45-70 and MB 6.  I always seem to get at least one or two correct in all my self picked numbers.  Unfortunately,  I'm still so far away from winning

Will this be the 1 billion $$$ jackpot?

Come on people Megapiler! Megapiler! Megapiler!

Spent 10 bucks on it today and got nothing its been like this since the matrix change

I knew the CV was low but seeing it with the other big jackpots really makes it stand out.

My last nght's Mega nos. were 12,16,21,25,28 and the golden no. 12, (the winning nos. were 19,24,26,27, 70 and no.12 as the golden number), thus clinching my fifth win in the new matrix. I am very much energized by the new Megamillions matrix. I think there is some glimmer of hope or maybe some light at the end of the tunnel....

Bigger and bigger!!! 

What a wonderful Christmas miracle it will be for some lucky lottery player this year!

Wow! Wow! Wow!   Party time!!!

 heres to setting a new record

Count me in! 

Nothing on my tickets, but $6 to roll for the office pool.

singlewinnersinglewinnersinglewinner

I had 1+1 last night.

With the matrix change I don't see the point of buying more than one ticket.

I had a 2 + 1 last night!!

Oh wow I think mega millions is going to roll again on Tuesday and break records, here in Canada our Lotto Max was also not won yesterday so next week is going to be $50 million + 50 max million (50 extra chances of winning a $1 million) making it tied for the largest jackpot in Canadian history, all cash value and no taxes 

I think it will hit $600 million before the next drawing!!!

I wonder why they raised the numbers to 70?  The odds of winning is not of this world!

Yeah, that $550M was ultra ultra conservative. I should get bumped up to at least $650M-$700M range, world record breaking territory!

They actually raised them to 75.

I agree that it will hit that range!!  I only hope that with Christmas so close the little kiddies don't have their stockings filled with losing mega million tickets.

 "Sorry kids, I blew your stocking stuffer money on Mega Millions tickets, I couldn't even afford a lump of coal!"

$550 million woo Hoo 

Lmao!

Wow!!!!!!  May the winner do honorably with this RIDICULOUS BLESSING, to himself/herself,  to family, friends, community, and less fortunate.

I only matched the mega ball last night.  I might let it roll without jumping in on tuesday.

woo hoo is right!

The jackpot will get to a billion after this next drawing.

That's a lot of tacos.

Maybe it will be Christmas in December for me!

I cannot wait to see how much it is on Tuesday!

I will celebrate with high tea should I be so fortunate to win .............

The annuity value is just vastly more inflated than it used to be. The cash value is exactly what it should be, and would be advertised as a $420 million jackpot if they hadn't changed the annuity schedule.

Even that value is higher than it would have been a year ago, because interest rates are a bit higher. During the record MM run in March 2013 this cash value would have been advertised as a $411 million jackpot. Ironically, that would result in this jackpot being called the 5th largest, even though the (current) cash value does make it the 4th largest

Not that the cash value isn't a boatload of money, but as of now it's only about 61% of the $477 million record. Even if the final tally increases the advertised jackpot by $107 milion, which will result in a lot of hype about the "new" record, the winner(s) will get less than 3/4 of what the real record paid.

A real record will require the annuity value to reach about $888 million. Considering sales to this point, that probably requires another rollover. A more modest jump to 690 would mean enough cash to move up to the 3rd place spot. That's a good bit more likely without another rollover.

Here you go folks, Mega Millions meets the Twilight Zone.

Dateline: The near future

A representative of the MUSL today said that they knew no one would ever win MM with the new 75 number matrix. The rep. saidt they wanted to get everyone in a frenzy with the thought of a 1 billion dollar jackpot, knowing it would never be hit. The whole thing was a marketing test and the game wil resort back to the former matrix.

The MUSL says thanks for playing and Have A Lucky Day.

Wow!!!!!!  May the winner do honorably with this RIDICULOUS BLESSING, to himself/herself,  to family, friends, community, and less fortunate.

It seems like no concerns over the odds being ridiculous against you now. How fast people forget about everything with the amount being so high. Wake up people! You are like a baby feeding into this garbage. You stand a better chance of getting hit by an asteroid or comet.

Think about a list of things you have more than likely getting than the jackpot. Now that's the fact of the matter.

If you feel like you must play get one ticket only and let it be, but don't overdo it.

How about that

Good idea to come on a Lottery website and instruct people not to play because the odds are bad.   

In Other News:   Water is wet...

Did you play or are going to play, Cupcake10?

2+pb = I'm still flushing money down the toilet.

I believe that the original poster was right, but explained him/herself wrong.

I was about to make the same comment.

The whole thing started with the Powerball rule change some time ago. I am sure you realized too that the PB Jackpot have risen faster and higher because of the higher cost and the worse odds of the new system.

I think the Megamillions franchise wanted to address this issue changing the odds from 175million : 1 to 250million : 1. This would result less frequent Jackpot hits and higher Jackpot payout. The higher Jackpot values would generate more playslips. The fact that cost of a MM ticket remained $1 also helps to get more people involved in MM rather than PB:)

BUT - and I believe this is going to be a big mistake - the odds are so bad now, that it cause jackpot payouts to rise to the extremes.

How would you manage two or three jackpots a year, each of them around $800-900 million (and a coulpe of more with much less winnings)? Just look at this weeks number, the jackpot jumped $100 million between two drawings! Imagine that there will be no winners in the next 2-3 weeks!

The whole point of Mega Millions and Powerball is to create big jackpots.  If you want to play for smaller jackpots, nearly every state has other in-state games offering smaller jackpots.

If I win an $800 million jackpot, I think I'll somehow manage it.  It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

BTW, it was lucky that nobody won the jackpot Friday, because with nine 5+0 winners, the odds were better that someone would hit.

I Am with you Todd Vader!

1 ticket, 1 Winner!

and may the almighty have mercy on the one poor soul that gets that lucky

I don't think it's as bad as advertised.   Outside of possible pressure from friends and family it's easy to say no to the rest.    Maybe you have to be that person to understand but there's plenty of people who have won big jackpots and never been heard from again.

Todd, you are right: if you are the player, the higher the jackpot, the better you feel

But now you have a LOT LESS change to win a LITTLE MORE* money.

Which one is the better: 20 winners taking home $300mill or 5 winners with $8-900millions?

Also this whole competition between PB and MM is escalating in front of our eyes: we pay more for the game and it's less likely that we (anyone) would hit the jackpot.

When I wrote 'how do you manage...', I meant how do the two franchises manage that they pay out nearly a billion dollar to the avarage joe (like me)

Don't get me wrong, I still play both games (just buying fewer PB tickets per week).

*couple o' hundred mill's more 

Answer:  It's better to have fewer winners take home bigger jackpots. 

Why?  Because if the game was structured so that 30 people split the jackpot, then the jackpot would NEVER grow to a large size because the game would be too easy to win.  Then Mega Millions would fail, and we would not even be having this discussion.

It is large jackpots that draw huge numbers of people to play.  People don't line up around the block for a chance to win a million or so.  There are a ton of games that offer million-dollar prizes.  Play a raffle, they are perfect for that kind of thing.

Todd:

I don't play raffle, OK!? 'Cause I love me my millions! Hunderds of millions.

(what i tried to say -  and this is just one way to look at it - i would give up the 800 hunder million jackpot that I most likely will never win to take home 300 million dollars that I more likey to get. all of this is theoretical, the chances are so low that I won't win in any of the cases. But I am still buying the tickets. Twice a week, every week. Even if it is for 'only' $40 millions. Do I sound desperate ?)

9 people won the 5+0....9!

With only 15 mega balls, that is surprising that none of those won the jackpot. Even more surprisong is the fact that 9 people beat 1/18m odds on a single draw.

Giving up a $800 million jackpot in order to take home $300 million is wishful thinking. The cash value of an $800 million annuity is roughly $429 million. Factor in just the portion of total Federal taxes that would be owed and your net payout would be $259 million. State taxes would make yet an even bigger dent on the overall take home amount.

The fact that there were 9 second prize winners is actually within reason.

18,492,204 * 9 = 166,429,836

Last night's sales were 167,868,489

Also, going by single draw coverage only, there was less than 50% chance of there being a jackpot winner. Next draw might be a different story.

I'm happy that Colorado had a 5+0 winner!  Another landlocked state that usually never wins anything.

Boo Hoo bubu, this is no time for picnic baskets. We want extreme jackpots. The more extreme the better, that's why we play. Better to have one person win $800-900M JACKPOT, than to have it split several ways. It's getting sweeter. Keep rolling baby, till we make it to $1billy. Hallelujah!!! 

Dude, the CV is still over 50 percent of the AAV so I will still throw $5 at a chance to win. 

Now the game Illinois is raking in huge profits from is Lucky Day Lotto which is a match 5 game with jackpot starting at $100k. There are twice daily drawing and it increases by 50k if no winner(s). It used to increase more when sales were higher than projected, but not anymore. However, I have to give Illinois Lottery props for listening to their players. When we first got to play online, there was no purchase minimum. Then they instituted a $5 purchase minimum, but at time you could only pay for one particular game before selecting numbers for another game for purchase. So if one wanted to play both MM and PB, you had to fork out $11 minimum. But I am happy to announce Illinois Lottery has added a cart feature (similar to every other retail online site like Amazon, Office Depot, Macys, TGW, etc) which enables you to select numbers for MM, add to cart and then select numbers for another game. Kudos Illinois. And as you might know, you have to be an Illinois resident and physically in Illinois in order to purchase online.

And WHEN I am that "unlucky" soul, I will be sure to get a PO box that I will give to lottery commission as my mailing address. I will have no problem flying to the lottery headquarters to obtain copy of necessary tax documents so eventually all those beggar requests will get returned to sender when mailbox gets too full. I will also change my doorbell chime to an audible "NO Is The Answer To Your Question" and I would have 2 doorbells. The obvious one would be the one I mentioned and the normal one would be under a decorative wall piece.

You're 100% correct.   I used to play that game all the time and I stopped playing that and the Pick 4 when they started to screw around with them.   Lucky Day (Little Lotto) was the best game out there.   Like you said if sales were more than projected they would add it to the pot and make the lesser prizes more.   Those days are gone.   I rarely play it unless like this past two weeks it gets over $500,000 which happened twice with both going into the $700,000 range.   It's a total joke, hardly anybody plays during the day so it's like supporting somebody else's pot when they win.    Good post, when they changed that game is when I finally gave up two different games.  I should have given up Mega Millions too because my numbers don't apply anymore since the Mega Ball only goes up to fifteen.

Does Mega Millions have inside information, they state it will be a Christmas Miracle for some lucky lottery player this year! How do they know someone is going to win this Christmas.

assuming

It's fixed.  Some lost cousin of a MM employee will win it.

$550M+

  I will also change my doorbell chime to an audible "NO Is The Answer To Your Question".

I like that. I want one that says "Go Away".

They wouldn't even get to my doorbell.

The security guard at the front gate to my compound armed with an AR-15 would repel all moochers.

Jon

do you play draw games like MM just like you play scratchers?

You can give the lottery officials a temporary PO box then change it shortly after. If you move to a ultra secure neighborhood, there would be no need to have a special door bell. There are numerous communities that offer their residences both privacy and security.

Any "unlucky" soul would be best advised to relocate. Anyone who believes that they can stay put at their current residence is purely dilusional unless they already reside in a private, guard gated enclave.

I play all games, but mostly Scratchers. Minimal on JP games and rarely daily games.

Normally all the MM/PB games get from me is 1 line per draw, that's it. Except when the JP is high like now I may throw more in, and play less on other games.

With a big JP it's more of a social experience I think. Everyone else beyond regular lottery players gets in on the game, and it becomes a topic of discussion with your friends and coworkers, "did you get your tickets? Wow, what would you do with all that money?"

People that sit out and say, "Meh, the JP ain't big enough, or you're just throwing your money away." That's not the point. I know I'm throwing my money away and it's likely not coming back. It's entertainment and the social experience.

I thought this was kind of amusing.   What's wrong with the picture on top besides being an outdated play sheet? 

http://www.630wpro.com/common/more.php?m=58&ts=1387031704&article=CD40636763EE11E3B51EFEFDADE6840A&mode=2

It's funny to watch all the news people go nuts over this MM JP, especially the clueless ones.

You see them on TV all excited at the local store interviewing people. Saying stuff like, "the new game has changed to choosing 6 balls from 1 - 75 instead of 1 - 56" odd are higher, odds are lower, and all the multitudes of statistical comparisons, like you're more likely to _____________ than you are to win the jackpot.

W O W !!!

 I reckon the olplugger will bet a buck or two on thisone!!

It's simple probability. I can tell you you're not going to win, and the chance that I'll be wrong is a miniscule fraction of 1%. If somebody wins any time between now and New Year's eve the lottery will happily call it a Christmas miracle, and not many people will argue.

If it keeps rolling, even a very conservative estimate would put sales at 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 million. Being conservative again, that would mean the chance of not  having at least one winner would be about 50%, 40%, 30%, 30% and 20%. That makes the overall chance of rolling past New Year's eve 0.36% if sales don't increase very much. Assuming stores can print a lot more then 400 million tickets per drawing the chance of 5 more rollovers is probably a good bit less than 1 in 1000. Figuring there's still a fair chance for arollover on Tuesday and sales will get ridiculously big, there's probably at least a 90% chance that there's at least one very happy camper come Christmas morning.

In the very unlikely event it does continue to roll, the lottery will just jump up and down and publicize the wonderful start to the new year that some lucky people are having.

Todd,

"BTW, it was lucky that nobody won the jackpot Friday, because with nine 5+0 winners, the odds were better that someone would hit."

Do you really consider a house advantage of 240M : 1 'lucky" for the house?

Using round numbers, odds against 5 + 1 are 258M :1

Odds againt 5 + 0 are 18M :1

That's a differnce of 240M.

258 - 18  = 240, no?

You're the guru of lottery information...how many games out there are 240M : 1 odds? Most state Pick 6 games are somewhere around 20M :1.

It sounds enticing that 9 people (or any number of peoplre) would have hit 5 + 0, but that's all part of the hype.Having the 5 and the right number of the 15 Mega numbers combined is the challenge. It hasn't happened yet and it isn't going to happen all too often.  This game is now designed to make MM richer and richer and richer and the rare jackpot winner is just the price of doing business.

____________________________________________

Old School Pa,

What's brining in revenue for Lucky Day Lotto is the fact that the player doesn't have the option of specifying Midday or Evening. On My3, Pick 3, and Pick 4 you have that option. On Lucky Day Lotto you can play multidraw but players who intended on playing just the next draw often play the next two. Say the jackpot is $500,000 for the evening and you know you won't be able to get the next day's Midday in time. Bingo, Northstar has turned another $1 play into a $2 play, times how many people?

 to many numbers on the top

The causal player can care less about the odds. It's not like PB's odds are a cream puff either. When I play MM, I would like to hit the jackpot, but I am more so treating this as a 5/75 game aiming for the $1 milllion dollar 2nd prize. Even with the Gold Money ball not included, the odds are still 1 in 17,259,390

I can't think of nothing better then nailing the jackpot on Chritmas Eve!!!

Yup!

It has nothing to do with the overall odds.  The real-world likelihood of a jackpot winner is determined by how many people hit 5+0.  Seasoned lottery players know that the more birthday numbers drawn, the more likely there will be a winner.  I'm sure the low numbers drawn Friday helped increase the number of 5+0 winners, which in turn made it more likely than not that someone would win the jackpot.  (A 9-in-15 chance, or 60% chance.)  The fact that nobody won therefore was in fact "lucky".

I agree with you 100%. Luck is Luck!!!

Wait...$550M??

That's the odds I get when I calculate odds for matching 5/5 with 75 balls.  However, MM has it at 18.5 mil.  Do you know how they calculate their odds for 5/5?  Just curious.

In general this is faulty. The number of second place winners was consistent with the odds and sales. Nothing extraordinary. You could have more than 15 second place winners and still no jackpot winner.

Luck has nothing to do with it....probability does. There was about a 48% chance of a jackpot winner based on sales. That which is most probable usually reigns king. In this case there was a 52% chance of no winner.

There are occasions when conscious selection bias does affect the outcome, i.e. birthday numbers. However, for Mega Millions there are fewer than 3 million of those instances out of the near 259 million. Not very significant.

Calculate odds of matching 5 of 5 AND not matching the 1 of 15 Megaball.

(17,259,390 ÷ 1) × (15 ÷ 14) = 18,492,204 (lottonumbers dot net has great explanation)

It can be confusing but just remember you calculate odds for that prize only and not any other prize.

Thanks.

I'm puzzled by the 9 second place winners. If terminals are repeating the same QP numbers, then it's possible that all combinations may never be played even if they sell a billion tics

It usually never even has to get that close.

Once you get past 86% combos sold, you can stick a fork in it, it's done! And if not, it'll probably be well before 95%.

Also, even though there were 9 5/5 white ball matches, probably had 1 or 2 with dupe mega ball, so really only 7 or 8 chances out of 15 for 5+1 JP hit.

Why puzzled? I'm sure some sets of #'s are repeated but if they sell say 10 million tickets with the 1st number being "2" and either those were self picks or quick picks and "2" doesnt come up then those 10 million tickets are losers for 2nd place and so on etc. So ya you can sell a crap load of tickets and have few winners

Todd,

OK, I'm sure anyone who has watched the drawing and had all five top numbers is on more than pins and needles watching the Megaball and 'knowing' it's a '1 in 15' shot at that point, but it hasn't happened yet.

Also, you can't really say that those nine 5 + 0 winners made it a 9-in-15 chance because that assumes they all had a different Mega number, no?

With the 56 matrix Mega Millions used to post on their site that they paid out 10 to 12 jackpots a year. It will be interesting to see how many paid out one year into this matrix.

I am thinking coin toss it will be 5 to 6 jackpots a year under this new matrix.  We will see in 2014.-weshar75

I assume this was intended to be funny, but you're definitely on to something.

Agreed Todd.  I was sure the jackpot was won when only one number above 31 came out of the hopper.  That 70 barely saved it this time.

When you have 30% of players picking birthday numbers millions of duplicate tickets down low.  I'd quess from here on out it will take 4 numbers coming out of the hopper above 31 to save this jackpot from being won.

Choosing combinations at random guarantees that se combinations wil be repeated when they sell millions of tickets. Depending on how ambitious you are you can demonstrate it for yourself with a die, a deck of cards, or whatever you have 259 million of. If you roll a die 5 times and get 5 different numbers there's a 1 in 6 chance you'll get the remaining number with your 6th roll, and a 5 in 6 chance you'll repeat one of the other numbers.

Most of the time, rolling a die just 4 times will  result in at least one number repeating. The second roll gives you a 5/6 or 83.33% chance of getting a new number. Rolling a 3rd time gives you a 4/6 or 66.66% chance of getting a new number, but only if the 2nd number wasn't a repeat. The 4th time it's 3/6 or 50% for a new number. That means the chance of rolling 4 times without repeating a number is .8333 x .6666 x .5, which is .277, or a hair under 28%. Just slightly better than every 4th time.

With a deck of cards or 259 million lottery combinations you'll usually need a lot more than 3 or 4 tries to produce repeats, but the same thing  holds true. As for selling all combinations, it's veryy unlikely to ever happen. Statistically you'd need to sell well over a billion tickets in order to  use every combination. Selling a billion tickets may be theoretically possible, but even if people would buy that many it would only happen after the jackpot has already reached well over a billion dollars. That means the chance of ever selling enough tickets to sell 99% of the combinations is itself something that's very unlikely.

"258 - 18  = 240, no?"

258 ÷ 18 = 14.333. The "difference" of 240 is meaningless. Probability is about ratios, not addition and subtraction. Since the distribution of the combinations sold isn't uniform we shouldn't expect that the 9 5+0 winners used 9 different mega balls,  but it definitely tells us that 9 people had a 1 in 15 chance of matching 5+1.

That means each of those people had a 6.666% chance of choosing the winning mega ball and a 93.333% chance of not picking the right mega ball. The chances that none of them would pick the right mega ball is then .9333^9, or 53.74%. That's very close to the overall odds that selling 168 milion tickets wouldn't produce a winner, which is what  we should expect when the number of 2nd place winners is very close to what probability suggests.

I'd be curious to know what happens to the  QP to self-pick ratio when the jackpot causes ticket sales to be unusually high. I would guess that  the infrequent players are more likely to  get QP's, so the 70 to 80% figure we hear so often may be based on 70% QP for typical sales and 80% for higher sales volumes. That would reduce the chances of birthday numbers making a winner more likely.

For a jackpot of $100 million, selling 20% of the possible combinations might result in a 25% chance of a winner if all numbers drawn are birthday numbers. If a big jackpot results in selling 65% of the combinations drawing all birthday numbers might only increase the chances of a winner to 70%. The first is 25% more likely than random probability, but the 2nd is only 8% more likely.

This one will be over $3,OOO,OOO,OOO before it is won.

Fatigue will set in and sales will collapse.

You really think so? You think people will become disinterested? I noticed that no 8s have fallen into the white ball yet

People are jamming in extra money that they can't really afford>> to chase the Rainbow.

That will slow down pretty soon. Theres a limit to diminishing return.

Getting closer & closer to that historic billion $ jackpot.

IT won't get to a billion....Someone will hit it before that happens. I'm thinking someone in the East Coast! LOL

There are many who are going to put down hundreds of dollars and win nothing.  The new odds are worse than the old one. A dollar or 5 is good enough.