i wolud buy more, but its not going to make a difference. I already spent a lot on the previous drawings contributing to this. I currently have $21 worth.

Oh my goodness, what a jackpot. I could fix that transmission in my old trk

To those considering multiple ticket purchases, I have posted a very in-depth explanation of how you can calculate your odds:  https://www.lotterypost.com/news/225630/1903831

Oh my God! What am I gonna do with all this money?

How awesome is this?? I can't believe it keeps going up and up!

I would probably have a heart attack if I won tonight.

Pennsylvania needs the first Mega Millions Jackpot for the State tonite ..........

........... I will be happy to accept the very large EFT into my bank account!

The odds are big .......... and I am small ............ but somebody's gunna win very big eventually!

$233,000,000 is the cash world record, we are 9 million away in cash form breaking the record

145,600,000 atfer full max fed rate of 35%, check mega for your state tax's thro

wow what am going to do with that much money, am not the sharing type, but really, wtf am i do to with it other then buy more stocks that pay dividends ,   guest i just have to buy 100m  worth of stocks Rofl, maybe spend 10m to 20m rebuying More lottery tickets and games in tennesseee

i can see the headlines, winner travels across nation playing millions per month on the diff state lottery's, why, cease he can write off the Losers thats Same Tax year agiant hes Win, LOL

aka i may of won 145m atfer tax's, but i spent 10 to 20m to do it, LOL am to greedy

and if it rolls,  Ha, the irs will be crying in joy as they steal their first 100m in pure tax's form 1 jackpot

Holy hell, with so many tickets being sold,

am having my doubts it can avoid us all and roll anymore, if it does, let the party happen!, jackpot fever is already rocketing!

f it, i get 20 more LOL

their be at lest 35  to maybe 40ish  5-0    2nd place winners,    and sense their only about 46 mega numbers, i hope it lands on the few mega numbers NOT yet matched with a ticket, the odds favor the players wining it by sheer force of numbers  like shotgun spread, this jackpot about out of luck

if it does not roll, someone form here better win LOL

p.s loved your odd post todd, glad to see math of odds detailed

What???!!!???!!!  It's been all of about 3 minutes so far... They haven't raised it more that 355, yet??

 ok,  NOW i am going to go out and buy more than one ticket ------>   (JK)

it only takes one...

WOW 

all i could afford was $4 in QP and that was after finding every last bit of change i could, a win like this would be nice

good luck everyone

DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I pray that God watches over the winner. Good luck everyone!

One of the first things I'll do if I win:

Because you know the media is gonna be all over the winner(s).

Would be real nice to retire.

times two .........

bought my $3 ....... personally this would prove the most interesting drawing since Jack

lord help the poor sucker that gets that lucky tonite

<snip> u buddy pennsylvania sucks.    cali in the house la#1 i won so stop playing

phooey on california .... still waiting on it to fall off into the pacific

hearsetrax: lord help the poor sucker that gets that lucky tonite

lol i know what you mean their, if 1 person wins, and they go public, their doomed with everyone asking for money, DOOMED!

and hope they watch their back, lawsuits form thin air will must likly appear, people are that stupid and sad and evil all in one

and god forbid its a single male, their be so many "gold diggers"  it be sad to see it happen

hopful they at lest buy some  body guards to stand in the way of people asking for money,

you need to go thro hes staff before you can meet with him LOL

if anything yells hides behind lawyers and a trust name, its winning this kind of amount by your self,  let the poor lawyer be the front man vs a army of media dogs

it also be intresting to watch all the state lotto sites, DROP offline like crazy tonite,  am sure todd getting ready for coming war of site hits lol

maybe we should start a thread called, mega millions draw kills x number of lottery sites, post them here

we can like keep count of how many  go down right atfer the draw LOL

buk all of you stop playing i have already won im taking 26payments because im 18... cali in the house la#1 bye.....

And you would be able to pay for the best medical care!

Thank you for your prayer.   I really appreciate it.

Yahoo!  I love it..... I went to buy another $5 worth of tickets at my favorite store and was nicely suprised to see it had gone up to $355 Million!   Oh the wonderfull things I could do with a jackpot of this size........I would wish everyone Good Luck but it won't help this Jackpot has my name written all over it!!   LOL!!

i say if anyone on here wins it they give 10k to everyone in this thread...i will if i win.

check will be in the mail in a few weeks

i hope no one wins because i want to see a new record. i would love to have the new record or a piece of it. please no winners and lets go for a record.

Would definitely be cool to see it hit $500 Mill which I am sure it will if this one rolls...But I will be more than hapy to take the $355 =)

I hope somebody wins the Mega Millions Jackpot in this draw.

No way in hell it's not getting hit tonight, especially with how many tickets are apparently being bought.

my god, its all over all major news websites local

this one thing catched my eye:

after a conference call between lottery directors, Mega Millions officials decided at about 11:40 a.m. to bump up the prize to $355 million, based on the brisk sales.

so now the diff lottery directors are having conference calls over how big this thing is

, i love to hear that conference

#1 director like: dude sells are out of control, we need to rasie it again

#2 director:  omfg  ever time we up the  amount, even more sales happen,

#3 director: i know #2, its like we could say its any number and we get the sales to support it

#1 director: if it rolls, we could be looking at half a billion plus jackpot

everyone on conference call breaks out with sound of laughter

conference ends. lol

I'll take a million dollars, thank you!

It still amuses me how Powerball jacked up their odds yet MM is still the one coming close to a record breaking jackpot.

now you are talking. 500 million would be nice. i have my fingers crossed that it will get past this drawing. if not may i get a piece of the drawing. i would love the big prize but i will take a 3 dollar win. hahahahah.

I got a note from a lottery today indicating that if nobody wins tonight, the Friday jackpot will be $480 million, with a cash option of $303.2 million.

Remember it doesn't matter if the jackpot is a billion dollars, your still 350 times more likely to get hit by lightning than hit the jackpot.

I would like very much to win tonight, however, if I don't and the jackpot hits this new high, this $480Mil will inevitably be raised to probably about $580Mil by the drawing.

Wow.  That would be about $237Mil in the bank after those annoying taxes.  Holy cow!!

Sounds like cross selling and adding a bunch more states selling the game without a matrix change didn't effect the potential size of the jackpots.

WOW!!!! this is so CRAZY!!!!!

This new member needs to go elsewhere ............ this is a friendly site!

I would love to win so that this superior person can be angry & what ever else ..............!

I like this idea.

here is my plan

current meg jackpot

355000000 divided by 

29 =

---------------

12241379.3103448 * yearly installments (could be wrong on the years)

12241379.3103448 - federal and state taxes

35 %

---------------

7956896.55172412 *

7956896.55172412 - amount my wife and I share

85 %

---------------

1193534.48275862 * yearly amount for me to be stupid

1193534.48275862 x

29 =

---------------

34612500 * stupid amount for me for 29 years

I buy the tickets all the time but I want some of my own money and not have my wife say that is a waste. So if she leaves me I am still keeping my 15% every year. A million dollars a year is a nice amount for me. Let me end with I love my wife dearly and she would deserve the 85% for putting up with me and vice versa.

todd you are the man for getting us this info,

no doubt thats a understatement of it really be by draw time LOL

they should just market it as 500m  to start and the sales will support it, news media"half a billion dollar jackpot"   will makes the sales go Wild

but 300m plus in cash, holy beep thats a lot of cash

the irs will be laughing at the winnersno doubt, it be pure highway robbery

man i never wanted to see a jackpot roll like i do now, even thro the odds are agiant it at this point, i want my half a billion jackpot darn it

I admit it, I have bought more tickets than I normally do. Usually I spend about $5 if it's over $100 million.

This time, well, I figure we've bought around $40 worth. That's about the most we've ever spent, but considering the jackpot, this is the right time to be doing it.

I just hope I'm supporting my own win!

Last drawing had $121,000,0000 in sales.  The jackpot increase was $42,000,000.  This increase is $113,000,000. 

Extrapolating, that would indicate sales for this drawing of over $240,000,000.  The odds are 1 in 176,000,000.  More than likely, the jackpot will be won.

 I am just waiting to drive an hour to lottery headquarters in the morning!!!

I am going to re-retire!

I think i would hang around for a while to soak up some attention thenlike a thief in the nite!!!

I don't see it getting past this drawing, but if it does.. HOLY COW.

"More than likely, the jackpot will be won."

We're definitely in the territory where  the odds are that we'll see at least one winner, but there's still somewhere around a 20% chance that there won't be a winner. Not that I'd have any realistic personal use for the extra money, but I'd really like to see it roll just to see how crazy things might get.

Holy wow

I have 4 tickets

I spent a total of $37 this drawing $35 quick picks $2 my own picks!! i hope i win something tonite,2nd place $250,000 would be awesome!!

Just give me my $342 million

Before Taxes

During Taxes

and

After Taxes

and y'all can have the rest.

All I need is just a measly $342 million to fund my gamblin habit. lol

In a daring act of both prescience and certitude, I just signed the backs of all my Mega Millions tickets for tonight's drawing.

I like your style. 

How much is the cash option after taxes in Michigan?

Sully16, have you thought about what you would do in your retirement?

Check here: http://www.usamega.com/mega-millions-jackpot.asp

$355,000,000.00 +

<snip>, I sure am excited to win this tonight!!  I've got my bags packed in my head and imaginary plane tickets to Florida!  Congrats and good luck to all winners and players!!!

Don't worry, I'm going to remain as anonymous as possible.

There is no rules against the winner wearing a mask is there?

No time for me to drive to the Texas border to get a ticket, since Louisiana is a Powerball only state.

If it hits $500 million, I may just have to get up on Saturday or Sunday morning and do just that!

Well, if no one hits tonight, it is guaranteed to pass 500 by only God knows how much. Good luck everyone.

I just heard on the news that if there is 1 winning ticket sold it will be the largest payout in U.S. history!!!!

Signed my tickets ........... all $7 worth .......... or maybe $145,000,000 worth (after taxes) !

stop yer killing me ........  personally I know whar I'd get mine from 

I did that to my tickets when the jackpot was lower but now that it's this high, no way am I going to collect without using a trust. Maybe if there's another winner and they get a lot of publicity I'll collect myself, since at least here you can get "minimal publicity".

Going out to pickup another $5 ticket but this time with annuity. $8.8 million a year... wow.

If i Win half it will be $177.5 millions before taxes I will not complain!!!

I finally gave in and bought a ticket.   I am amongst those who think someone or someones will win tonight.   Why not us?

Anyway, at this moment in time, everyone of us holds the winning ticket!   Good luck and have fun dreaming!

You Never know, It can happen to you!!!

Bad Idea!  The state of California like most states and the Federal Gov't is Broke!  When it comes down to "Crunch" time do you think the state would rather pay off their FireFighters/Teachers/Police Officers or a Millionaire lottery winner?   I say take your money and run.....Whether you're 18 or 80.   My state is said to be atleast a Billion in the whole and the Gov is talking about lots of Cuts being made.....A politician would rather cut about anything than Medicare payments or Social Security......   So I'll take my dough up front!

CBS just posted that tickets at one point today were selling at the rate of 240,000 per minute. 

WOW!!

That is CRAZY!!!!!!!

Lets say that rate was happening every minute after noon.  Cut off time for selling tickets is 10:45. 

645 minutes until cut off time.  That is 154,800,000 tickets in that time period.

A safe assumption would be that two thirds of tickets are bought on the last day.

Total sales will be around  $225,000,000.

I can see that easily happening considering that this is a large multi-state game.Individual lottery players are buying tickets by the bundles!!!

welcome to jackpot nation fever,it has the power to make even sane lottery players spend away

also the state lottery's  are laughing all the way to the bank

i bet if it rolls, louisiana and florida will feel so left out......... maybe they even think about joining a good thing for once, as boy, they are missing out,

thro texas and arkansas are loving dumb louisiana losing sales to their border stores , way to go , your lost is their gain louisiana

and georgia loving florida lottery taking its sweet time to join mm lol

these 2 WISH they was a part of mm tonite!

also todd, i hope your ready, in about 2 hours, all hell about to break lose on lotto websites

So how much are these states making from this drawing alone?

According to the California Lottery website, 33% of lottery money goes to education after prizes and expenses.

I just looked at the Mega Millions official website,Never seen that posting before!!!

I hope someone win who plays the game not some random person who never play pull out a dollar and win, there are loyal mega millions players who play every or almost every drawing regardless of jackpot size for years!!!!

"Due to unprecedented traffic, our regular web site has been 
temporarily minimized to provide access to the greatest
number of players possible.

Winning numbers will be posted shortly after the drawing."

Yea, I wonder how bad their site is going to get hit later if they've already had problems with traffic.

I predict there will be two if not three winners tonight.

I doubt one person walks away with all that cash.

ttech nice catch, i love how they know their about to get their butts murdered and already trying to brace for whooping of epic scale,

also JWblue i think  1 person could win it all, we finally have someone to Beat Jack the walking disaster for single largest winner ever

Yea i can understand all the traffic because of a jackpot of this magnitude,there are of a lot of non lottery players playing!!!

That will be nice, even if there is three winners tonight each person check will have at least 118 millions on it!!!!

I won the $355 million.

I like the motivation but i am holding the signed ticket in my hand.

freeobama pointed it out, I just quoted it. Had quite a surprise when I went there.

It's amazing how many people on this board have the same numbers, haha.

I would not be shocked at all if there was a one ticket winner who went down the same path as Jack!

When the jackpot was $390 million, there were 43 people that matched 5 of 5.

My guess is that sales will be higher for this drawing so there should be about the same about of 5 of 5 winners.

If the winning numbers are low, then there could be more.

Three hundred fifty-five million. And you know the final will be more. Whoa. Oh the things I'm gonna do with my winnings! 

Ya'll back off my lottery jackpot.

 i am expecting alot of 2nd place winners, something is always better than nothing.

GL to all players tonight! 

Keystone

We must have the same numbers!!!

i just did some math on the lump sum payment.

sitting in a bank account here in oz, that would pay $24k a day in interest earnings!

There's a plan in place that has been seven years in the making.

That's cool, as long it is just us. I have plans. I'm gonna throw $100 bills out of a helicopter in the most unusual place I can find.  I was thinking maybe over a college football stadium during a game.    Or maybe I'll use a WWI biplane.

Me too.

Cool, I am going to pass out $100 bills to foster children! 

Here's a news report about tonight's jackpot.

Something to pass the time while waiting for the numbers to be drawn! 

Do you think Lottery Post will set a record all-time high of online users?  Currently 7800 and growing!

Jimmy

Thanks alot Todd for this information. Everyone knows N.Y. and California ruled 2010 i do not have nothing against them states, but i rather see a smaller state  that economy and lottery sells is suffering a chance this new year.There are states that have not won a single jackpot in years.

forty minutes til the drawing!!!! Is everyone ready?

lets bring this money back to lima ohio.........

I was born ready!!! normally i wait until the next morning to check my tickets but i guess i will check them afther the drawing, besides if i win i win if i do not win i will try again!!!

I wish we had MegaMillions here in Louisiana.  If it hits a half billion, I may make the drive from Baton Rouge to Orange, Texas to get some tickets.  It will have to be for Tuesday's drawing though, since I work during the week and would have to go on the weekend.  When the agreement to sell both games in the same state was finalized, it was mentioned in local media Louisiana wasn't going to join.  If it breaks a half billion, I wonder if Louisiana will rethink that position.

I am guessing atleast 50% of the country population got a ticket or tickets in there possession!!!

What time is the mega millions drawing tonight?  It says 11pm on their website, but the station here in ct says 11:22.  I'd like to watch it live.

11:00 pm

Just checked my tickets...didn't win anything.  I hope it rolls over again...i'm gonna keep trying.

same here, now we wait, i hope it rolls so bad, thro lotterypost is already lagged out, thro sure running musty lol

if it rolls, the next drawing is a dooms day draw for us all

thro usamega sure going strong, guest todd made sure one 1 site has the power to stay up, the other can lag a bit lol

Im sure someone from newyork/newjersey or cali will hit it....they allways hit it

I bet $14 but didn't get more than 1 number on a row.   I can't go to sleep until I know if there was a jackpot winner.   Did you hear the host on WGN say if there was no winner, it would be $480 million next time!?!   Wow!

Wow, that was the first time I've ever seen my network bandwidth literally pegged at 100% continuously.  It was like a heart monitor that goes flat-line, except at the top of the scale.

Even now, more than an hour later, the bandwidth is at around 95%, which is why LP is a bit sluggish.

USA Mega was up & rock solid for the whole time, which I'm pretty happy with.  I think if it rolls I have an even better way to speed things up, but I guess we'll find out if that will be necessary in an hour or so.  (Maybe less.)

For the hundreds of thousands of people with the Lottery Results Gadget installed, their Mega Millions results were delivered right at 11:00 pm directly to their desktop.

As the person who actually entered the results in the database, I thought it was pretty neat to enter the winning numbers in the database, and then see the gadget update (and play my set sound effect) a minute later.  Like and "around the world", but with lottery results.

Anyway, I'll be getting the pages I took offline back up and running soon.

I hope someone here won!!!

2+1 for me. Dang it

480 is apparently just an official conservative estimate, I'm more than certain it would storm well beyond 500.

Did anybody win???????????

Maybe I did. I'm afraid to check my tickets until official announcement.

Where's the list of the ten biggest jackpots in US history. I know I saw it around here somewhere.

Try this.

Did anyone win? Do you think anyone from here hit jackpot? It look like not alot of posts from drawing till now. I mean there not alot of posts.

It looks like there were 3 winners, one from Idaho, not sure about the others.  Here's a link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40921264

just read it one winner from idaho one from texas one from maryland

07-20-27-42-44, Mega Ball: 09 | No Matching Numbers


03-10-21-30-43, Mega Ball: 27 | No Matching Numbers


06-10-20-40-50, Mega Ball: 12 | No Matching Numbers


03-04-08-11-16, Mega Ball: 01 | Matched 2 numbers + 0 Mega Balls (no prize)


04-16-29-43-50, Mega Ball: 42 | Matched 1 number + 1 Mega Ball ($3.00)

Okay, correction there are two winners.  One is from Idaho, the other is from Washington, this is according to powerball.com.