"Here is further evidence Powerball is still winning the race. ... After 5 Mega Millions draws .."
PB has fairly consistently grown faster than MM, including under the $2 per ticket format, because of the 3rd weekly drawing, with short variations when MM has a really big jackpot. The consensus seems to be that Sunday drawing are unlikely, so MM has to work with just the 2 drawings per week. The differences you're comparing are advertised jackpots of 358 vs 20 and 474 vs 145. Over those drawings MM increased an average of 23.2 million per drawing over 5 drawings, for a total increase of of $116 million. PB increased $125 million over 8 drawings, for an average increase of 15.63 million per drawing. FWIW, the previous PB run was at $364 million on 7/28, and after 5 drawings rolled to $482 million. That $118 million increase, at nearly the same advertised jackpots and only $2 per ticket, is a whopping $2 million more than the current MM increase over 5 drawings.
"Mega Millions still has a chance to take the lead."
The lead is determined by who's in front at the moment, not the gap between the lead and those chasing the leader. PB is "running" faster on a weekly basis, and slower on a per drawing basis, but as of now MM is offering about 2.5 times as much money at a ticket price that's 2.5 times as much as a PB ticket.
"If Mega Millions jackpot fever takes off and the jackpot surpasses the largest Powerball jackpot for this year, then it can be declared the current winner. "
As above, it's already the current winner. Of course it's really not a race to the respective lotteries. To them it's just an effort to maximize revenue. Right now ticket sales for each drawing are resulting in about a 2.6 % chance of a winner. There's a 50% chance we'll see at least 10 more rollovers, depending on how much sales increase as the jackpot increases. That's another 10 chances for MM to pull in average sales that are 2 to 3 times sales for the first few drawings.
"Believe you me, if MM gets to 1 Billion. I am only doing $5 a draw. "
"For Megamillions, the equivalent annuity jackpot would have to be $5 billion for me to play "
The sensible people all have a higher buy in point, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens at $1 billion and the inevitable (though possibly far off) $2 billion jackpots. If it gets much past $2 billion I suspect the $5 price wont be a s much of a deterrent as many people are saying. I don't expect ticket sales to be as high, but I expect revenue would exceed PB's haul for the last drawing at $1.8 billion.
"there is a good chance it will break the record number of 36 consecutive jackpot rolls and possibly the Powerball record of 41 rolls. "
As above, it's probable that we'll see the MM record broken. Depending on how much sales increase there's a decent to strong chance of getting past 41 rollovers.
