Comparing the games MM, PB and some others/what to buy?Prev Topic Next Topic

New Topic New Poll

Think

Marquette, MI
United States
Member #20,540
August 20, 2005
1,385 Posts
Offline

Apr 1, 2025, 2:30 pm

The new Mega Millions game will have multipliers that can win up to $10 million but what are the odds?

According to the flyer on the Michigan website these are the odds for the various Megapliers

10 x 32:1

5 x 16:1

4 x 8:1

3 x 3.2:1

The odds of winning second prize are 12,629,232:1

Thus the odds for these prizes are

$10,000,000 12629232*32= 404,135,424:1

$5,000,000 202,067,712:!

$4,000,000 101,033,856:1

$3,000,000 40,413,542:1

The Price of the new Mega Millions is $5

Compare this with a $2,$3 or $4 Powerball ticket

Odds for second prize 11,688,053:1

Depending on what options you can buy the prizes are $1,000,000, $2,000,000 or $10,000,000

For $2 you go for $1,000,000, for $3 you can go for either $2,000,000 with the powerplay or$10,000,00 with the doubleplay (with odds of 292,201,388:1 thus way beating the odds of winning $10,000,000 on the new mega and for $2 less per ticket)

If you don't live where you can buy a doubleplay ticket it's a mute point

Anyway for $5 you get one chance on a megamillions ticket but for $3 you can get two chances on a powerball with double play. Depending where you live you could take that $2 and get a Lucky for Life or Cash for life ticket and have a chance at either $5,750,000 or $7,000,000 at either 30,821,472:1 or 21,846,048 so if you get the doubleplay and a lucky for life or cash for life you have way better odds for just as good or better "2nd" prizes plus you have three chances at a prize for $5 vs one chance with the new mega millions.

Puke, puke and puke! This is why I won't buy a megamillions ticket until the jackpot is way high!

Anyway they can fool some of the people all of the time and that may include the people themselves at mega who came up with the new game.

What made them consider this version of the game to be a good idea?
NJPiney

NJ
United States
Member #234,340
August 5, 2023
54 Posts
Offline

Apr 1, 2025, 7:13 pm

Agreed, no more mega millions for me. I hope we see the jackpot only increase +1 million after the first draw. I'll be playing Cash4Life on Tuesdays/Fridays. Odds for Cash4Life jackpot are over 13x better than MM, and the ticket is 60% cheaper! Good luck 🍀
PrisonerSix

Baton Rouge, LA
United States
Member #4,602
May 7, 2004
1,396 Posts
Online

Apr 1, 2025, 9:53 pm

I most likely won't play MegaMillions much after Friday. $5 is a little high so I may wait until the jackpot gets big.

I may buy extra tickets for Friday's draw to take one last big chance while it's still affordable.

Prisoner Six

"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
Think

Marquette, MI
United States
Member #20,540
August 20, 2005
1,385 Posts
Offline

Apr 2, 2025, 10:28 am

Maybe I should come up with better titles like "putting lipstick on a pig". At any rate I wonder how many players will notice that it is actually harder to win $10,000,000 than it is to win the Jackpot.

MegaMillions was always about big jackpots so trying to kludge all this other crap to it always was and always will make it a bad deal. Unfortunately it will take them at least 3 years to decrapificate the $5 game. If stupid people want to play the megaplier then Megamillions should make it an option. This next version truly is a terrible game and should only be played when the jackpot is a billion or more and the coming game design is just more proof of that.

I'm now strongly considering not playing until the cash amount is a billion.
hypersoniq

Pennsylvania
United States
Member #1,340
April 6, 2003
2,940 Posts
Offline

Apr 2, 2025, 11:13 am

That sounds like a fair plan. Wait until the lump sum is a billion... not the annuity. The cost of the ticket is its own beast, they lost me with the needless matrix change.

It is not unlike PA cash 5, which they doubled the price of and mixed in a dumb instant "win" game where you might win from $2 to $6 with the ticket that prints out after the game. At least they did not change the matrix again. (They have done that once before).

Matrix changes make previous draw data more useless than it already is.

Have an EXCELlent day!
PrisonerSix

Baton Rouge, LA
United States
Member #4,602
May 7, 2004
1,396 Posts
Online

Apr 2, 2025, 7:25 pm

Quote: Originally posted by hypersoniq on Apr 2, 2025
That sounds like a fair plan. Wait until the lump sum is a billion... not the annuity. The cost of the ticket is its own beast, they lost me with the needless matrix change.

It is not unlike PA cash 5, which they doubled the price of and mixed in a dumb instant "win" game where you might win from $2 to $6 with the ticket that prints out after the game. At least they did not change the matrix again. (They have done that once before).

Matrix changes make previous draw data more useless than it already is.

I'm trying to decide how high should it go before buying tickets. My current rule for Powerball and MegaMillions is I buy 1 ticket for every $100million of cash value.

For the new MegaMillions, I plan to wait until it reaches a certain level before playing at all. May $250million cash might be a good start, or perhaps $500million, I don't know.

I was only going to buy one ticket for the Friday draw, but I decided to to buy 5 just to take once last big shot at it before it goes through the roof. It's also my way of giving the old MegaMillions a good send off by perhaps being the first MegaMillions jackpot winner in Louisiana.

Prisoner Six

"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
Hermanus104

Bearflag Republic, Los Angeles Division
United States
Member #83,345
December 5, 2009
1,524 Posts
Offline

Apr 10, 2025, 12:12 am

I stopped playing Powerball and Mega Millions a long time ago when I realized how low the payouts were compared to the odds for the lesser prizes. For numbers games, at least the payout is 50/50 in most states.

Today's winning 3-ball is going to be a number between 000 and 999.

In a lot of states, lotteries benefit education. That makes the REAL winners the only people who can't play!
Justing618

Baltimore
United States
Member #221,592
March 26, 2022
999 Posts
Offline

Apr 10, 2025, 4:26 am

Quote: Originally posted by NJPiney on Apr 1, 2025
Agreed, no more mega millions for me. I hope we see the jackpot only increase +1 million after the first draw. I'll be playing Cash4Life on Tuesdays/Fridays. Odds for Cash4Life jackpot are over 13x better than MM, and the ticket is 60% cheaper! Good luck 🍀

I switched to cash for life to. For the same reasons you stated above. Might buy a mega millions ticket if it's gets over 800 million. Good luck!
Stat$talker

700 light yrs West of Milky Way Galaxy's Center
United States
Member #200,634
September 1, 2019
5,509 Posts
Offline

Apr 10, 2025, 9:59 am

Quote: Originally posted by hypersoniq on Apr 2, 2025
That sounds like a fair plan. Wait until the lump sum is a billion... not the annuity. The cost of the ticket is its own beast, they lost me with the needless matrix change.

It is not unlike PA cash 5, which they doubled the price of and mixed in a dumb instant "win" game where you might win from $2 to $6 with the ticket that prints out after the game. At least they did not change the matrix again. (They have done that once before).

Matrix changes make previous draw data more useless than it already is.

"Matrix changes make previous draw data more useless than it already is."

That'z Xzactly whyy I suggested to Playaz to "Save" their Old MM Data file up to the date of the New Matrix drawing...cauze some Software duzzn't consider Old Matrix data in itz rendering.. While utherz startz a brand new data file..altho only MM'z BBN Matrix haz changed..the Mainballs Matrix & Probabilitez remain the same..

My future Book will enable you to back-check whut Probability Math had sed about about drawing Preditionz ...

They can lie about the Future, but they cain't change the Past..!!

-Stat$talker
Stat$talker

700 light yrs West of Milky Way Galaxy's Center
United States
Member #200,634
September 1, 2019
5,509 Posts
Offline

Apr 10, 2025, 10:18 am

Quote: Originally posted by Think on Apr 2, 2025
Maybe I should come up with better titles like "putting lipstick on a pig". At any rate I wonder how many players will notice that it is actually harder to win $10,000,000 than it is to win the Jackpot.

MegaMillions was always about big jackpots so trying to kludge all this other crap to it always was and always will make it a bad deal. Unfortunately it will take them at least 3 years to decrapificate the $5 game. If stupid people want to play the megaplier then Megamillions should make it an option. This next version truly is a terrible game and should only be played when the jackpot is a billion or more and the coming game design is just more proof of that.

I'm now strongly considering not playing until the cash amount is a billion.

"This next version truly is a terrible game"

%

Instead of restructuring MM'z BBN & Megaplier, LOz shoulda renamed the ENTIRE Game...

"DINO MILLIONZ" (az in DINOsaur).. Meaning "Terrible Game"

I PrEdIcT it will soon bcome XStink..

-Stat$talker
Lotterologist

Michigan
United States
Member #36,255
March 30, 2006
3,906 Posts
Offline

Apr 10, 2025, 10:22 am

Interesting...

I've never played Cash4Life before, but I have read about it.

Maybe i'll take a look at Cash4life.

New Topic New Poll

Subscribe to this topic

Comparing the games MM, PB and some others/what to buy?Prev TopicNext Topic

Comparing the games MM, PB and some others/what to buy?Prev Topic Next Topic