DES MOINES, Iowa—There is no mystery why the Mega Millions jackpot has grown to $1.55 billion, making it the third-largest ever ahead of Tuesday night’s drawing.
The prize has ballooned because no one has matched the game’s six winning numbers since April 18, amounting to 31 straight drawings without a big winner. The nearly four-month-long unlucky streak could be all the sweeter for the person who finally lands the top prize, which is inching toward the record lottery jackpot of $2.04 billion won in 2022 by a player in California.
Why Does It Take so Long for Someone to Win?
It has been a long stretch of jackpot futility, but Tuesday night’s 32nd straight drawing since the last winner still isn’t a record. The longest run for a Mega Millions jackpot was 36 drawings that ended on Jan. 22, 2021, with someone winning a $1.05 billion jackpot. The record number of lottery draws was for a Powerball prize that ended after 41 drawings when someone won the record $2.04 billion jackpot.Wins are so rare because the odds are so miserable, at 1 in 302.6 million. When a drawing fails to produce a big winner, the prizes roll over for weeks. Bigger prizes sell more lottery tickets, which also drives more revenue for the state services lotteries fund.
Steven Tallant, who bought three Mega Millions lottery tickets Monday at the same gas station in Minneapolis, said he doesn’t expect to win even a smaller prize.
How Many Number Combinations Are There?
There are roughly 302.6 million possible number combinations for the five white balls and separate gold Mega Ball in Mega Millions. The white balls are numbered from 1 to 70 and the Mega Ball goes from 1 to 25.Don’t Expect to Put $1.55 Billion in the Bank
Yes, the money will come pouring in if you win the Mega Millions jackpot, but don’t expect a $1.55 billion check to pop into your bank account.That’s because the estimated $1.55 billion prize is for a sole winner who chooses to be paid over 30 years through an annuity. Jackpot winners almost always choose a lump sum payment, which for Tuesday night’s drawing would be an estimated $757.2 million.
For either prize option, a big slice of the money would go toward federal and possibly state taxes.
State lotteries typically lop off 24 percent of winnings for federal taxes, and the bill can run even higher because the top federal income tax rate is 37 percent. Many states also tax lottery winnings.
What Is the Best Way to Choose My Numbers?
Players overwhelmingly choose the easy pick option when buying tickets, letting the machine generate numbers for them. In Iowa, for example, more than 90 percent of Mega Millions purchases were to people who let the machine choose, rather than selecting the numbers themselves.The odds are the same no matter if the machine chooses the numbers, or you do.