Friday it is! I guess. The winner(s) will be a lottery pool out of Virginia.

Good luck but it will be won in TX. Hope multiple winners though.

2nd largest jackpot ever and a pre-tax expectation value of 0.83 and a rollover probability of almost 59%.

...following a $667M jackpot that sells just over 100M tickets.

Not very impressive.   

This happened because the odds of winning are closer to zero than any historical lottery, and it would seem people are getting that.

Oh well, I'll buy a few tickets anyway, but just as a fun way to pay taxes to support education.  God knows we're robbing our children and grandchildren blind; at least we can pay a little bit to educate them against the dire future they face because we can't think.

Unlike most people who post here, I won't win.  I'll bet 80% of the posts here will consist of people predicting their own win.

Stay sane.

Goodness - I really hope it rolls on Friday and becomes the biggest prize ever - thus beating PowerBall.  Love it!  And PowerBall should be won on Wednesday, and then won again on Sat at 40M... that will keep its jackpot roll from starting too soon and allow MegaMillions to enjoy the spotlight all by itself!

Go MegaMillions!  Roll on baby - roll on!  Think we can get a 2B j/p before its won this run?

According to the above Preliminary Estimates Mavis Wanscyk from Chicopee, Massachusetts will soon be displaced from the number two spots. She has held that spot for just over a year and managed to stay out of the news. No news is good news.

 Who here is willing to become a possible #1 ranked winner? In both Annuity and Cash Lump Sum? 

 We have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for ticket sales to propel the annuity and cash lump sum to new record heights!

 Imagine if one sole winner happens to be a Lottery Post member. 

Too late she has already been surpassed as the #2 spot in the all time highs. She now sits on the bronze throne.

I was going by the two words phrase, "Preliminary Estimate". They have not been won yet. 

 I agree that the second place has been reached. Now it is up to us to make it #1.

Never say Never!  $2 billion dollars would be a fantastic prize. 

Will the Lottery Post record statistic of 89,552 online visitors fall soon? This stat is at the bottom of the Opening page. New records everywhere with this jackpot!

It would be interesting if someone won both the Mega Millions & the Powerball. I wonder what the chances of that would be.

I'm sure anyone would be happy to win either one of them, or even share the jackpot.

If I were to win 2 jackpots I would cash out the smallest one and do the annuity on the larger one. Do you think that would be a good idea?

About 90,000 times a trillion. It's so low that it's very unlikely anyone would ever win both PB and MM in the same week over the entire history of mankind. Just call it zero, close enough.

I sit on a porcelain throne now, but when I win, I might get a bronze one! 

NOWthen

Between the nation's two largest lotteries, there's over $1 billion in jackpot money up for grabs. The odds of hitting all winning numbers in either game? Pretty bad.

For the $868 million Mega Million jackpot — which marks the game's first-largest top prize ever — your chance of winning is 1 in 302.6 million. For Powerball's $345 million top prize, it's 1 in 292 million.

The chance of winning both is at least 1 in 88 quadrillion. That's 88 followed by 15 zeros.

1:88,000,000,000,000,000

Wow interesting read.  Love the Stats. 

Those digits play over and over in the states 1510 and 1411 love them two. 

Im staying in my p3 & 4 lottery lane got 1 number out of 6. Geeez

Good luck to all and may the forces be with yall!

don't forget to get the bidet

Spent $50 for Tuesday's draw, (won $14).  Friday it's going to be $100.  As the saying goes, "you gotta be in it to win it."

A list of friends/family has already been compiled just in case I'm the sole winner.....grin.....

All those zeros makes a person dizzy......grin.....

So $200 million tickets sold, and not a winner. There’s an old saying an old man who used to come into the store used to say, “raquetero”.

If at first ( or 2^nd through 24^th time) you don't succeed, try, try again! 

Thanks TheMeatman2005, I knew there was some mathematician out there that could answer that question.

Experts on news reports say odds of that are 88 quadrillion.

All I did was Google it! But, you're welcome just the same.

#INEEDTHAT!!!

UH OH!

Big Money!

One Ticket, One Winner!

Mega Millions is a slow roller and I think that selling only a third of the odds if that goes to show you how hard it is to win this dang jackpot.  I bought $9 worth of tickets on Tuesday night and got one number on two tickets so this time I am spending $3 and hoping for the $200 level and up for my luck on the ticket.  I think that you should megaply your tickets though when you play and not go for more tickets because if luck strikes then you get a bigger prize because we all can not win the jackpot but some of us can win a decent prize.-weshar75

#$311,535,000afterFedTaxes

Hi Suzy---Are you going to replay the tickets you played last night and get an additional $50 in new tickets for Friday

or get $100 in new tickets? Curious because I have a habit of replaying tickets.  Good luck to you either way.

That is if there is only one Jackpot Winner Friday night, otherwise she gets to keep her Tiara.

if the cash value goes to a billion, we might, maybe, could possibly look at the probability of thinking about buying a line or two.

Almost Playable.

“Can’t win” is strong with this one!

Good Luck weshar75!!  We need a winner from Oregon.   California does not have megaply.

JADELottery - whew!  you are tough!  Good to know the lottery is working hard to entice you!  :)

I'm willing, music*. I've been preparing for it since the day in 1994 when my boss talked me into buying a Florida Lottery ticket to try my "beginner's luck." I know precisely the steps I would take, that is, if I survive the initial shock!

Back to the store then for a ticket for Friday.  Annuity option looking better and better the higher this jackpot goes.

Well, the jackpot growth hasn't been impressive.

When you take out the inflationary starting jackpot and put all other jackpots on a level playing field, this growth is average at best.

The previous highest jackpot grew much faster and with less cost to the lottery player; $1.00.

We leveled the jackpots on all other rollovers to a baseline starting pot at $1,000,000.00.

Next we graphed the previous 104 jackpot rollovers and adjusted for jackpot magnitude with a logarithmic scale to see the changes better.

In the chart below, we can see where this jackpot run is relative to the previous 104 rollovers.

Now, if the $2.00 play was all the rage about getting the jackpot higher, faster, we don't see it.

Players don't play by the line, they play by the dollar.

Player's buying power was slashed in half by the $2.00 increase and it shows.

If they were playing only by lines, that growth should have blown away the previous highest jackpot growth.

For me, it's worth $6 per week from now on until someone else or I hit the JP. Again, I am going to play for pure "what if I win" entertainment value.

Win it, split it between brothers, invest/put away to live comfortably, think and work on how can we improve life for those that are closest to us first and others afterward.

....Great call 

Great stuff JadeLottery.

NY needs a winner, specifically me.

Perhaps we should believe that nobody will win, then perhaps the old German folklore will ring true.

Thats a total joke for it to get that high !!!

The only one making money is the lottery.!!!!!!

I wouldn't waste a dime on it.

WOW JADE, YOU ARE A LOTTERY WIZARD. GO Explanation, EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND THE CHART IS Concise.

I am still trying to figure out what did I do wrong.All six numbers were in the S** house. How is this possible ?

I second you.  Enough with this big amt.  There should have been a winning ticket already.  Only the lottery gods know it.

You spent $50.  I only spend $6 since the amts of tickets went up a $1.  You won $14 back.  That isn't good at all.

Not true....the number 1 spot is the 1.5 billion which was split between 3 tickets but it's still number 1. The list was not for "The top 25 single winning tickets"

I mean the man has a point. There's like a 99% chance that if you play you wont win anything. So he is just saying that since he knows he probably will indeed win nothing he would be willing to consider playing once cash value hit 1,000,0000,000 which would happen with an annuity of around $1,757,469,244. I've spent only about 20 bucks since the jackpot was at 40million after the last win and I don't think I've gotten a single number so far after 10 lines. For this draw I might not even get 2 lines. Also in 2 years of playing I have only ever gotten the power ball prize (sometimes with Power Play).

Wont go past $4

In Our Opinion,

It comes down to timing.

When to play is as important as:

How much to play?

What numbers to play?

Where to get the tickets?

Do I use a System, Wheel, Quick Pick, Lottery Post Quick Picks Generator, Ouija, Mystical, or Pray Like the Dickens?

From our chart, you could visually estimate to wait about 10 draws before playing, but that's our opinion.

Some jackpots are won before 10 draws and some after.

We'd take the after, saves money.

It's funny though, watching both side of playtime happiness stumbling over each other trying to position themselves for a win.

We just like to keep your jackpot goggles in focus for a bit; long enough to see the reality of the draw.

If  the jackpot rolls over tonight, I'll be one of the people crossing the state line      to purchase a couple of tickets. This weekend. 

Same.

I used to spend $10/week but after price went up I spend less. Now, I only play when JP is huge(one goes $500M+).

To those that are complaining about odds and not going to play and etc.... To me, when I put money in to lottery either home/work, It's all fun just like going to $5 movie matinee on a weekend. And talking about which hero we think is going to die and what happened in the movie with my son on the way to and back from movies all makes it worth it.

Do I put a lot of money or put too much hope into winning JP? Nope. But playing 1-3 draws makes me invole in it, so I already put in a plan IF my time comes. It's all fun.

The reason there hasn't been a winner yet is because we as a country spent $210,196,810 on that draw. Assuming that like 100% of the tickets were $2 that would mean that about 105 million tickets were bought which isn't enough to have bought every single ticket. What's more is the fact that if each state uses a bank thats independent of another meaning that in NY there could be 15 million tickets that were bought all with different combinations while in Rhode island there were 500k but each of those 500k are identical tickets to NY. One states combinations has nothing to do with another's.

 Another example to why even though the jackpot is high there's such a huge chance for another rollover. 

• One person in california bought every ticket (spent 30Million)
• Each ticket was a different combination
• Each ticket was played without the mega plier (not offered there anyways)
• Given all this there would still be a 5% chance for this person to have won the lottery (math) 30Million spent on tickets tickets are $2 each so 15,000,0000  out of 302,000,000 combinations played                                                                                           

 If we go even further to 2012 when someone won the Mega Millions for  656 million on Mar. 30, 2012 you can look and see that the State of California spent $120 million for that draw. 

So in 2012 for the MM people spent 120million for a 656 million jackpot in the state of CA while last night the state of CA spent about 30 million for 667 Million. If we pretend even further that back in 2012 each of those tickets were bought by one person with no repeating combos and no mega pliers (not offered anyways) that would mean that one person in CA had played 120/259 M combinations which is a 46% chance for that 2012 draw compared to a 6% chance last night. 

After seeing all this you can see how easily the jackpots can rollover for these past drawings.

$900 million, really???

TX gets it out faster than the official site. This might just beat out PB's record. I suspect the JP attracts another layer of players as it gets to another level of the 100s of millions. If PB is won tonight, we could see our first 2bil JP.

Noticed the same thing last week, it seemed to lag behind about 10' from states lottery websites.  Come on Georgia, you should post that first then release it to the states.

Todd and staff will have it easy this time.  Just to change the amounts since the standings remain the same (for now!).

I wouldn't even bother updating unless it goes past 1 Billion which based on sales is very unlikely to happen.

Yeah, why bother changing it for a lousy $100 million?

Annuity - $900,000,000.00

   Cash - $513,400,000.00

          less the tax.

Some other history for both PB and MM.

*pending current jackpot run as of 2018-10-17 @ 11:17 CT.

My money says it'll reach $1 billion easily, especially if Powerball is won tonight.