Florida residents can join in the fun for the first time
By Todd Northrop
Lottery players across the United States — including Florida for the first time — are buying their Mega Millions tickets in preparation for Friday's massive $190 million drawing.
(See Mega Millions comes to Florida, Lottery Post, May 15, 2013.)
The cash value stands at a staggering $140.9 million. Lottery players typically think of the cash value as roughly half of the annuity estimate, but this Mega Millions cash value represents 74% of the annuity estimate.
Friday's Mega Millions jackpot is the accumulation of 18 consecutive drawings without a top prize winner. The current jackpot run-up started on March 15 as a $12 million grand prize.
Players should note that jackpot amounts are conservative estimates provided by the lotteries, and are often somewhat higher by the time the drawing occurs.
In the latest Mega Millions drawing that took place this past Tuesday night, there was no jackpot winner, but 7 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $250,000 prize: 1 from Delaware, 2 from Georgia, 1 from Illinois, 1 from Maryland, 1 from Michigan, and 1 from New York.
Also, a total of 64 tickets matched four of the first five numbers plus the Mega Ball to win a $10,000 prize. Of those tickets, 8 were sold in California, where the prize awarded this drawing is $10,432. Unlike the other Mega Millions states, California awards all prizes on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning the prizes will change each drawing based on the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets that won at each prize level.
The Mega Millions winning numbers for Tuesday, May 14, 2013, were 6, 10, 12, 28, and 32, with Mega Ball number 38. The Megaplier number was 4.
Following the Tuesday drawing, the Mega Millions annuity jackpot estimate was raised $20 million from its previous amount of $170 million. The cash value was raised by $14.2 million, from its previous amount of $126.7 million.
The next Mega Millions drawing will take place Friday evening at 11:00 pm EDT.
Mega Millions is currently offered for sale in 43 states, plus Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For a complete set of game descriptions, results, history, and all questions regarding Mega Millions, lottery players are encouraged to visit USA Mega (www.usamega.com), a Web site that caters to the Unites States's two multi-state lottery games, Powerball and Mega Millions.
The Mega Millions winning numbers will be published at USA Mega Friday night, minutes after the drawing takes place.
$190 Million Woo Hoo
Fun time playing MM! Woo Hoo $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Today is a good day for Florida Lottery players. Two huge jackpots up for grabs. Good Luck everyone.
The return of A Dollar and A Dream!
Welcome Florida...
The drawing for the $190 million MM prize will be rollover #19. The only other time MM had 19 rollovers the jackpot was the record $656 million prize. It's just hard to believe the enthusiam for the MM game has been so low.
With the cash option being $140 million, I might even donate a couple bucks since they now have included Florida.
IMA donate too. Welcome FL.
The Mega Millions jackpot should be a lot bigger, but the Powerball is eclipsing it and stealing its thunder. I will be playing both and praying for a miracle. I need that dream house and new car! Good Luck to All!
Woo hoo! Go MM!
I'll be expecting MM to increase to $2 price, using this as proof that it is needed to keep up with PB.
Both will go to a billion dollars, NO ONE can win. I'm trying my hardest, but still can't lol
wow putting it that way makes the 190M$ not seem so big...
As if Floridians don't have enough on their plate trying to pick the PB winner tonight, they got to start thinking about picking the MM winner Friday night.
Welcome to our world in Ohio. We not only got PB and MM with their large jackpots but even our local games got some decent jackpots, Classic Lotto (6/49) at $35M and Rolling Cash5 (5/39) at almost a half million. There just too many ways to lose a dollar, I wish I had more of them.
count me in again
Good Luck everyone
I wish you all luck if I don't win hehe
Try even harder!
Then you will win for sure!
There will be no way you can lose!
Woohoo. Welcome FLORIDA. This will sound greedy but hopefully now there will be more than a 20M added to the rollover.
Oh no. I hope not.
I don't think MM will increase its ticket price. The whole point of the $1 PB ticket price increase was to differentiate it from MM, since every state with a lottery now has both games. If MM increases its ticket price, then it will negate the purpose of the PB price increase.
Finally MM made it here, got my ticket tonight! Good luck ALL!
Rather than raising ticket prices, it looks like MM is planning to increase the odds instead.
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/79663/group/homepage/
Sounds like they thinking of making more money by almost eliminating the chances of having to payout a jackpot. It will certainly make some states games more profitable especially if they have better odds for winning jackpots of $20-$50M. Unless they up MM second prize, local games will probably have better odds for prizes amounts.
Did I read that correctly Mega is upping the odds to one in 258.9 million
I hope they leave it alone. If it aint broke,dont fix it. Havent played pb since they raised it.
That sounds like they will be raising the price to $2. That's exactly how PB did it. Raise the odds, and when that doesn't accomplish what you want, drop the odds and double the price of a ticket.
Holy Moly 75 white balls! That will be almost impossible to win!
Well, they'll get less of my $. I don't play to get the megaball. I play for the jackpot. I'd have to see what the 2nd prize is and what the odds are, but I'll lay money that I won't be happy with it.
If they go f***ing with the odds they can stick this game where the sun don't shine!!!Its d**n near impossible to win anything now.First Powerball doubles the price of a ticket,now MegaMillions wants to f*** with the odds.OUTRAGEOUS!!!
Smart move: make the top prize ridiculously hard to win, and expect more people to play... <NOT!>
Oh, but at least the puny $2/$3 prizes are easier. Meh...
that is alot of white balls.
I rarely play as it is and this new format will alienate even more people.
Not only are they going to make the top prize that much harder to win but the odds of winning the 2nd tier prize would go up over 373%. They will publicize this as being much easier to win....sure if you enjoy getting $2 or $3 winners.
This SUXS
I believe this is a mistake to do. I have no doubt that the MM jackpots will increase in size, but it'll take forever to get there. And since the odds of winning are even less, players will turn to other games where the probabilities are better, only bothering to try their luck at MM when the JP is large enough.
In the meantime, the public will be seeing more jackpot winners from PB than MM by comparison, so that's where they'll go to try their luck.
Changing the 2nd place odds from 3.9 million to 18.4 million is insane. There are many in state lotteries that pay out much more with better odds. This will certainly drive away many individuals who consider the odds prior to participating. Sure there are some who couldn't care less....the big jackpot is all they care about.
Hopefully they raise the amounts along with the odds. I wouldn't care to see the odds for 5+1 & 5+0 go up as long as 5+1 starts out at $25 mil at least & 5+0 prize changes to at least $2.5 million.
Exactly, I'd rather go ahead and stick to the state games. Most you're going to get for 2nd place here is $2M. Why not take chances with local lotteries where so many wins are between the $5M and $30M range. At least in my old state.
I don't get what they were thinking.
PB increased their prices (not good) but then decreased the number of balls (good) and doubled their starting JP (good), so at least the good tempered the price hike.
MM isn't doing anything except making it harder to win (not good). If they're going to do something idiotic like that, then they need to have something to outweigh the longer odds
perhaps something like doubling the 2nd place prize to $2M, with a multiplier option of $4M. Increase the 3rd place from $10,000 to $250,000 or even $500,000. Something like that, to at least entice people to keep playing. Otherwise, I personally have no incentive to MM until there's another huge JP.
LOL. Great minds think alike. Just reading this now and we're on the same page.
If I were ever in charge of a lottery game which had really long odds, I would do away with the annuity. If the JP is $190M, $190M is what would be paid out. Minus taxes. But no annuity vs cash payout BS. They win the advertised JP in it's entirety right away.
I think people would go for that and wouldn't pay so much attention to the fact that they would have a better chance of being raised from the dead than winning.
Why don't they?
Once they eliminate the odds of anyone ever winning the jackpot, they can start out with a larger one since it will be unlikely they would have to pay it out.
That would indeed be nice!
Canada is one country that offers that. That still wouldn't free a US citizen/resident from any federal taxes.
England too. Full jackpot and no taxes on it.
And Australia. And all Euro Millions participating countries, if I didn't misread.
In fact the US is the only one that fools people with annuitized values and then heavily tax the fair share of the prize that I know of.
You could always denounce your American citizenship,if you like.
It's easy money for the federal government to earn. They'll never let go of it.
How amazing would this be if the full $600M is what you would get. Right now you'd need a jackpot of well over a billion to end up with a $600M payout.
People would be a lot less excited if they didn't keep putting "fake" numbers up and having the winners take pictures with the big fake amount check.
Sorry Johnny, I know we told you you won $2M, but here's the real check for $800K. Thank you for playing "Who Wants to Be a Fake Millionaire"
Oh no, say it ain't so! Mega Millions should not have to change - it's perfect just the way it is!
Getting back on topic here, it appears Mega Millions was hit tonight, by two tickets - one in New Jersey and one in Virginia. Hopefully, my ticket did not win anything, because I lost mine :-( (I'm from Illinois though, so it couldn't have been a jackpot winner). Oh well, at least no Florida player took this jackpot.
There were two jackpot winners (one in New Jersey and one in Virginia)
Maybe Todd won because he from New Jersey.
Alright guys, the MM went tonight to two winners. NJ again? You guys are on a roll.
No way is PB going to roll tomorrow. Now that the MM is gone and no longer a distraction, they're going to be even more PB tickets sold.
Think it's going to edge towards $700M though.
No second place winners in Illinois either. Phew.
I Hope he did Win, Thanks for the info
Congratulation to the winners
or Maddog he's from New Jersey as well.
Oklahoma either