Speaking of Mega Millions, some lucky soul had X2 multiplier in CA with five #'s.   Though no fan of parimutuel like they have, they scooped up just over $5 million.

We'll see what direction, if any, this new Director takes.

A bit of context for people who might not be aware.  California's multiplier numbers do not work like the other states' do.

California divides the prize money derived from sales into 8 different "buckets" representing the 8 non-jackpot prize levels.  Each bucket is its own prize pool that all the winners of that prize level share.

The multiplier number on each winner's ticket represents its "share" of that prize pool.  So someone with a "2x" on their ticket has "2 shares".  A "5x" multiplier has "5 shares".

So let's say last night California had two second-prize winners, not one.  For illustration purposes let's say one winner had a 2x multiplier, and the other winner had a 3x multiplier.

The total prize pool for the second prize in California hadn't been won in some time (it rolls over ever time it is not won), so it was a huge $5,104,960.

Between the two winners in this scenario, there were a total of 5 "shares" (the 2x multiplier plus the 3x multiplier).  That makes each share worth $1,020,992.  ($5,104,960 divided by 5.)

So the 2x multiplier winner would get $2,041,984, and the 3x multiplier winner would get $3,062,976.

But what happened last night is that there was only one winner, so they take home the entire $5,104,960 prize pool, and whatever multiplier number they had on their ticket didn't matter.

It works exactly the same way with all the other prize levels in California.  Each level is a prize pool, and the multiplier number is the number of shares of the prize pool the ticket will win.

Of course, this is totally different from all the other states, in which the multiplier number does actually multiply a root fixed prize amount to determine the take-home prize.

Thank you Todd for the information.

Now to back to CA on the $775 million Powerball Wednesday.  Normally in all other states one would receive $1 million for having five #'s....but not good old CA.   Their Powerball paid $255,789.    Grant it, sometimes as in the case of the MM winner, it is much higher!

I really don't care much.  If you ask me Mega Millions jumped the shark over 10 years ago.  This year MM died when it rolled 40 times and didn't even get to a fake billion.

Say what you will but Mega Millions is in a state of collapse.

The only other question is "will Powerball follow?".

I quit playing Mega Millions totally after the $5 ticket price run to 40 rolls with almost no second place prizes and no multibillion dollar jackpot as promised.

I doubt this new person will do anything exciting.

Wow this'll surely help it grow more than $10m a draw

Increasing the price of the MM ticked to $5 was a failure. There is a Psychological barrier about it.  Where they can, people is playing more Powerball. We can't care less about minor prices. We play these lotteries for the jackpots.

Can you imagine the emails, texts and phone calls  he will get about the $5 ticket price? It's really doubtful it will change though.

They just changed there web page. And it kinda sucks now. I dunno why they can't leave the web pages alone.....

Congrats and good luck

Looks the same to me both on a computer & phone.

Hopefully he's intelligent enough to decrease the game price

The states are constantly leaning on those who run the lotteries to generate more revenue. I'm sure that's what led to them bumping up the cost and odds on the MM. States love it when jackpots are high and millions are pouring in each drawing because people who don't normally play are chasing the billion dollar payouts.

I imagine a meeting after the last big jackpot got hit when the weekly revenues dropped back to normal levels. The question is asked how do we change things to get those big jackpots back more quickly? Easy. Make it harder to hit and while you're at it jack the price up to $5 a ticket. So they run it past the focus groups and get enough evidence that those changes will fly with the public. Except it doesn't work as planned. The people who play normally are staying away because of the $5 price, which slows down the build-up, so we don't get to the feeding frenzy stage.

And then somebody in NJ is lucky enough to hit and it drops the jackpot back down to the starting point. Nobody's happy about that except the guy in NJ.

I'm pretty certain they wouldn't be changing leadership if they were happy with the current set of changes. The last guy oversaw the bump up to $5 and increased odds, so he's the fall guy. Something going to change because how it is isn't working the way they'd hoped. Stay tuned for something different, but if their past behavior is any indicator, you probably won't like it.

It used to show pick 3-5 together. Then I could click which pick game. And look at previous numbers. Now I have to look at each pick game separate. There front page now is filled with trying to get you to play computer games...

I read everyone comments and I actually agree with everyone who has different perspective on the price increase. And there's the problem, no one is playing the piece of crap new structure game. I never purchased a $5 ticket since it's new structure and I'll never will as long it stays at this price. I don't care if it reaches 2 Billion, NOPE because PB will probably between $400-$800 million levels if MM reaches those levels and I have a piece mind my $2 going towards jackpots that's more fair than $5 jackpots. Plus $400 before taxes is still life changing money. Either way odds still hard on either one. It's just seems they're are trying to rake in more millions from people around this country but under estimate the power of people who said this is enough. You getting to greedy. Also they're probably losing money every month around the country because people are focused on the Powerball like me. Going up 10 Million for every 40 drawings is ridiculous 🤣🤣🤣🤣So Powerball pay attention if you reading this don't you dare follow suit or you will hit your demise as well. Be smart not greedy on the American people

Hmmmm first mega millions now cash+lucky=millionaire 4 life. $5 a ticket .... wow!

Seeing as I only play lucky 4 life when pb and or mm are less than 250 million .... and then no more than twice per week .... like it used to be Mon and Thur.  I think if I decide to play ..... it will be no more than once a week if even that.... when pb and mm are less than $250 mil.

I think I'll have to eat more liverwurst and or oliveloaf sandwiches in the future when the lotto storm comes this January.

Have a shaggy day,!

ShagE3

Every time time they change the matrix to make it harder to win and/or increase the price they tell us it's because players want bigger jackpots. So now we pay more and get fewer big jackpots due to the reduced sales. I liked it better when the matrix was smaller and the jackpots were around 100M. It wasn't as much money but people would win more often. And I don't know anyone that would turn down 80-100 million.

1-MM should bring the price back down to $1. You want wide public participation in this type of game to pump the jackpot up.

2-most of lottery players are low-income people. 

3-play the game three times / week like PB has done (T-R-Sun). 

4-$1 price wouldn't make people to think twice about spending money to play the 1:292M odds (I'll try my luck with chump changes).

5-take 45% cut of the jackpot instead of 60% (return some of the money back to those initial jackpots).

Bet we see a whole lot of MM jackpot winners from VA now..

The ultimate power lies with  the players, and many players took their purchasing power elsewhere.   The boycott is working.    I haven't played MM since the $5/line cost. 

I recommend lowering the ticket cost back down to $2.   

MM will continue to lose sales to competitors like Powerball until then.   The people playing one line per draw MM and losing $200 in the run up will get tired of bleeding $500/year at a 96% losing rate.

Though I won $30 twice the week of the big jackpot, that was it for me until the jackpot rises way up there.  Sure lower 'millions' sounds great, but too hard to win.

Won $1500 and $500 Saturday @ Derby City Gaming.  The former was tax free since we don't have casinos, based on horse races.   I had a high bet negating taxes.

Seems like a reasonable person for the position.

https://www.valottery.com/aboutus/leadership

"Hopefully he's intelligent enough to decrease the game price "

Unlike a lot of people here he's intelligent enough to know that the lottery's only marketing concern is maximizing revenue, and the $5 tickets are probably doing that. 

"I'm pretty certain they wouldn't be changing leadership if they were happy with the current set of changes "

Did you read the story? The lead directors serve terms of 1 year, and  they're usually also holding the job of lead director for a state lottery. The change is based on the calendar, and the people who chose a new director after the last guy served his 1 year term are mostly the same people that made the changes that gave us the current MM game. As lead director the job is basically chairperson of a committee of the other directors.  As such, the opinion of that one person has very little impact on what the entire committee decides to do, and the new lead guy arguing to change it back will have about the same effect as an argument against the change before they approved the change.

"The ultimate power lies with  the players, and many players took their purchasing power elsewhere.   The boycott is working. "

Boycotts don't work by buying less of a product. They work by spending less money on the product. A month ago the MM jackpot reached $980 million on the 40th drawing. Last night PB reached $985 million on the 41st drawing. Somehow I don't see that as an indication that players are spending less money and convincing the MM directors that they made a mistake and need to fix it. What I  see is a general trend of slower sales and an effort to boost MM revenue that seems to have been slightly successful without even getting past a $1 billion jackpot. Probability guarantees that each MM run has about twice as much chance of getting there as a PB run, and the sales from just a single drawing for a huge jackpot can bring in as much revenue as the first 20 drawings of a run. Probability over the long run is what the lotteries have always counted on, and it's very improbable that it's not going to do what MM hoped it would.

"I haven't played MM since the $5/line cost.  "

Neither have I, because it hasn't crossed the threshold that will get me to start playing, but what does that matter? If I played based on a budget I could buy more chances for PB when it gets big enough, or I can just keep the money. PB sales have been going down, not up, so it seems that fewer players are buying fewer MM tickets wile spending at least as much as more MM players were spending on $2 tickets.

"MM will continue to lose sales to competitors like Powerball until then. "

Hello? McFly? Do you think management at Coca Cola  worries if people buy Diet Coke instead of regular Coke or do you know that they're both products sold by the same company? The money goes to the same place whether you buy Diet Coke instead of Coke or PB tickets instead of MM tickets. If you buy tickets for a state game the money goes to the same place. And if players don't spend the money they're no longer spending on MM  tickets on different games then the states will be looking for ways to increase revenue on those game. If they do that what they're going to see is at least a minor increase in MM revenue for the $5 tickets.

The bottom line is that the players who aren't still buying MM tickets can whine and hope as much as they want but it's got about the same chance of working as hoping you're going to have the ticket that wins the jackpot.