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YMBII
Proposed changes to Mega Millions game will raise ticket price to $5
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/350996
Excerpt:
.....If you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed a huge announcement about how Mega Millions is slated to change. On Tuesday, proposed game changes were quietly revealed to the public in a small Montana Lottery Commission meeting. There is no official press release or statement on the official Mega Millions website discussing these amendments, but the meeting attendees confirmed that the changes were indeed being passed on to the Montana Lottery by the Mega Millions Consortium for their review and eventual approval.
“The Mega Millions Consortium has determined that in Spring of 2025, they will be implementing these changes,” Montana Lottery Marketing and Sales Director Anne Charpentier said in the meeting.
Charpentier said they anticipate a financial loss to some degree in raising the ticket cost. In the past, they have seen “upwards of 35% of players vacate the game” whenever there is an increase in the price point for a game, but it’s “always made up by the other [percentage] that have stayed and played that extra dollar that has been asked of them to stay in it.”
There may be a silver lining.
While dedicated lottery players may bemoan the hit their wallets are about to take from the increase, there are at least other positive changes to look forward to. One of those is increased odds at winning.
Currently, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are about 1 in 302 million with five regular white ball numbers between 1 and 70 and one Mega Ball between 1 and 25 to choose from. The new odds at winning the jackpot will be 1 in 278.369 million. In comparison, the odds at winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.201 million. The odds at winning any prize in Mega Millions will slightly improve from 1 in 24 to 1 in 22.15.
The Lottery did not confirm exactly how the number matrix would change, but based on the new proposed odds, Lottery Post estimates that two gold Mega Balls will be removed from the number matrix to bring it down to 23 from 25, and that the regular white ball number matrix will remain at numbers 1 to 70.
The Lottery says that the average amount a jackpot will be hit at is projected to be about $694 million, a noticeable increase from the previous $387 million. These changes may result in more frequent billion-dollar jackpots.
There’s also the Megaplier feature, which will now be incorporated into every ticket purchase.
“The multiplier of 1X up to 10X will be added to each play automatically, so Megaplier, which was an optional purchase, is now going to be automatically added to each play,” Charpentier revealed. “It will be randomly selected for the player, so randomly, a multiplier will be added to each play.”
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Can’t make this up, they flat out say raising the prices will result in a financial loss but they will do it anyways. Typical state employee who has never worked in the private sector. Guess the Mega Millions casino never wins./s
The last time I played Mega Millions was probably over a year ago so it won’t effect me, just their comments though ignorance is golden and richly rewarded. The Mega Millions employees are probably paid very well. Will see if it happens much can happen before Spring 2025.
