The Mega Millions Jackpot has broken an all-time, worldwide record. It now stands at $370 million and tickets are selling at an amazing rate.
New Jersey officials report Mega Millions tickets are selling in that state at a rate of 700,000 tickets per hour, and that won't even match what they expect during "rush hour." Officials say early evening is when they sell the most tickets, and that's when they expect to hit 1.2 million ticket sales per hour. Sales close at all locations at 10:45 pm.
The results will be shown at www.usamega.com minutes after the drawing takes place.
The jackpot is so huge that tonight's drawing has been moved from Atlanta to Times Square. New York Lottery diva Yolanda Vega will be on hand to draw the winning numbers for the historic prize.
The odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 176 million. But there are also secondary prizes, starting from $2 on up. The odds there are about 1 in 40 — which means, of course, you still could parlay your winning back into more tickets in case nobody wins the jackpot Tuesday.
The previous record-holder was Powerball, at $365 million on February 18, 2006, which was claimed by 8 meat plant workers in Nebraska.
Other significant records: in 2002, three winners shared a Mega Millions jackpot of $331 million. Powerball has the record for the largest single winner with $314.9 million won on Christmas Day.
The only thing I hope for is when the person who will be blessed with this astronomical amount of money will be smart and use good judgement when handling it. I say this because I notice when the jackpot gets this big and someone wins, their fortune always seem to end up in turmoil.
Good Luck to Everyone who plays tonight!!!
Aw, come on, I hope I win it so I can go spend a lot of money!
Well at least we beat the record out right now....we always had it with the cash option but now MM is the ruler once again!
There is no way no one is going to win tonight. I will be very suprised it only 1 ticket matches all the numbers.
B-rad
If I win, I will have to hop into my car and drive around, screaming, just so that no one hears me and thinks there's a crime being committed!
I can see the headlines now:
370 Quick Pick Tickets Matched All 6 Numbers on Last Nights MegaMillions Drawing! LOL!
Well I just did the math and they are selling about $150,000,000 worth of tickets for this drawing. I believe that might be a record in itself but the May 2000 draw might have actually sold more. So I highly doubt someone is not going to win this drawing and if by a very slim chance no one does it will be amazing to see the next jackpot numbers.
B-rad
Multiple Winners!!!
I wasn't gonna get on board but the talked about it on Today's show. I thought I better do something.
Since I got my tickets over the internet, maybe after I come out of jail I will enjoy the money.
hey todd.if i win i'll buy you a new vet......
You know they have to be lowballing the estimate. How embarrassing would that be..."Well, we thought we had snatched the record from PB, but the jackpot was really $362 million, so we didn't even beat the Big Game."
Dare I mention it....when the dust settles, could tonight reach the $400,000,000 level???
Bradly_60...my figures show if the jackpot stays at $370 million in ticket sales will be at $173.4 million for this drawing. Either way that is a lot of tickets.
Anywhere on the net where you can find sales for the May 2000 draw?
Odds are now if favor (i.e. greater then 50%) that someome will win on this draw.
I think there will have to be a recalculation on the lump sum after the draw. Oh, lets call it a hunch.
Multiple JP winners for sure.
At least 3 is my prediction.
I'm sure they're still lowballing the estimate by a bit, but I'm guessing sales will come pretty close to whatever their real estimate is. They may not have much data for sales at this level, but they have an enormous amount of data on buying patterns over the time between drawings. That data tells them that over the long term n% of tickets are sold from 6AM until noon the day afetr a roll, n2% are sold from noon to 6PM , n3% are sold from 6PM until midnight, and so on.
When they made their first estimate of 340 they knew they were being conservative and they did it based on an estimate of overall sales for the whole 4 day period. Whatever time somebody started working on the most recent estimate, they already knew how many tickets were sold in the first 85% of the total sales period. By modeling the current estimate on the pattern of previous sales they're probably going to come very close. How conservative they were is probably a bigger factor than how close the real estimate will be. I'd guess it will finish off close to 375, with a reasonable chance of hitting 380.
The only way it will hit 400 is if an enormous number of peolpe who virtually never buy tickets and haven't shown up in previosu data stop on the way home from work to buy tickets. Assuming the real estimate is 375, boosting it to 400 would require selling almost 50 million more tickets.
Probability almost certainly suggest a single winner for tonight. The uncertainty is in how many combinations aren't picked randomly. Fewer random picks favors a roll. Unless sales do push it quite a bit higher multiple winners is less likely than a roll.
We will see. Before noon, it wasn't the largest jackpot in North American history. New lottery pools are being formed left and right this afternoon at workplaces.
This is fun!
Lottery fever has officially hit Connecticut. That's all the talk around the office, and I've heard several people asking about the closest stores in NY that won't have lines.
Well I found the amount of tickets sold in the May 9, 2000 draw it was:
$195,576,985
So we might not reach it with this one but this is definetly helping out the states complaining of low MM sales.
B-rad
I called my brother in NC and told him, if you are near VA...go and get some.
Yeah someone is going to win tonight, and there should be multiple winners with the amount of
tickets being sold. And you heard it here first New York will have a winner. The stage is set!
Powerball is still a better game. Lets remember how the jackpot got this high in the first place
NOBODY HAS BEEN WINNING! So to those of you that have fell for the MM scheme, wake up
They will go down as having the largest jackpot in lottery history so does that mean that MM
is the hardest game to win. If you are a lottery player how does a game that no one can seem to
win excite you? I'd play a game that someone wins once a month with a 12 million dollar
jackpot. This enormous jackpot is better for the game than it is for the players
Ack. Mega Millions is about the dream. We're not mortgaging our houses/lives to buy tickets. For me, it's $10 (price of a drink in NYC) and a chance to dream about a life that's completely, unimaginably different than the one I currently live.
I totally agree with JAG...I know that I will not win, but it's worth a few bucks just for the unimaginable to maybe come true.
How dumb is a jackpot close to 400 million and the second place prize is 250,000
unless ofcourse you live in California
By my estimate, which only factored in taxes on the jackpot, once the lump sum hit 202 million buying a ticket was an even money wager (on average you would make as much money as you lose) as long as you were the only winner if you did win. Not exactly a practical way to make money, but it's interesting to know.
Powerball isn't doing so bad either. And as far as lines go, I have never stood on line waiting for a lotto ticket in NY. You can play almost everywhere, so I wouldn't worry.
Thanks, I might take you up on that!
Has anyone here actually bought any tickets online? I am just skeptical on how it works
In the words of Han Solo "Never tell me the odds!". I'm in it for the dream, for the little lift it gives me, for the place I can rest my heart and mind after a hard day, it gives me something to look forward to at the end of every Fri and Tue. Just think for the price of a coke I can win a million dollars.
It's going to roll for Friday's drawing.
It's a good idea to be skeptical because there are a lot of scams out there. I've tried to highlight reputable sites here of Lottery Post. If you use the search feature you'll find a lot of discussion regarding this topic.
I've also spent a lot of time detailing sites that are complete rip offs. Like thelotter, lottery universe, My Lotto, etc. It's better to burn your money than two spend it on one of those websites because at least if you burn your money you have the benefit of the heat.
The answers will not come quickly. Dedicate some time to go through past posts looking at the discussions around this topic. You have to be comfortable with any place where you're spending your money online, or if not then just play your in-state games.