The winning MM has been sold! Oh my!

Article on the Los Angeles Times website at 12:30 pacific says that 95% of combinations have been sold. That's from a Mega Millions spokesperson.

It also says that if it rolls, they may do the drawing in Times Square next week.

Based on how many tickets have been sold, 95% is pretty close to what probability predicts, given a random distribution. Any non-random influences (playing birthday numbers and patterns, for example) will reduce the number of combinations played.

As a practical matter it's absolutely impossible to sell every combination unless they are deliberately assigned.

itll go to a billion and who ever wins better be a navy seal

You know you're tired when you see this thread and then the time stamp and realize, "Darnit, I bought tickets after that time" and so you think there's no way you could win.

Anyways... now that I'm thinking clearly... I'll say that the only way I'll believe all numbers have been played is when there's video of an official spokesperson saying they have, in their system, it listed as every possible combination as being sold/played. I'm assuming anything as of now is just that it's likely it has been sold based on the amount spent on this drawing.

A few years ago, when Mega Millions was The Big Game, and it had its first jackpot over $300 million, with odds of "only" around 80 million to one, I think someone mentioned the last draw before the jackpot was won was a draw in which 96% of all possible combinations were purchased, yet the ball machine picked a combination that was in the 4% that wasn't purchased = no winner.  It could happen again.

Even at 95% of the combination already sold, with 5% leaves us with 8,785,577 combinations available. There are still a chance and the winning ticket could be in the remaining 5%.

exactly. that 5% is stilllllllll leaving plenty of wiggle room for the ppl who missed the "winning deadline" ha!

It's quite possible that it could roll, not likely, but still very possible.

Whenever someone throws out those 99% or 95% statistics, I just think about what percentage the people who won the past jackpots had. People win with 1 out of 175,711,536 just the same as people can lose with 175,711,535 out of 175,711,536.

so that means the live drawing is bogus  if "the lottery" knows the winning combination already. wow. that is all i

have to say.  if i had know that i would have limited the amount of tickets i'd brought.  oh well

jokers wild

It starts at 12 million and I think so too. Too many tickets have been sold for there not to be a winner/winners. If it rolls then God <snip>!

Looks like there is multiple winners from different states. Maryland is the first to report they have a winning ticket...

Imagine that.

pff, please.