In April, the price of a Mega Millions lottery ticket will jump from $2 to $5, a change that officials say will come with better odds, bigger wins and more money for California public schools.
The price rise is driven by a desire to generate larger, faster-growing jackpots and differentiate Mega Millions from other lottery games, Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Association, told The Times.
“Sales are already starting to increase [jackpots of] “$700 million, $800 million, and they got pretty wild when they hit $1 billion, so there’s obviously an appetite for those amazing prizes,” Johnston said.
Mega Millions will also realign the odds of winning – from one in 302.6 million – to something a little less astronomical.
Johnston said exact details about the new odds would be released in February, but noted they would include reducing the number of balls used in the drawings. He added that the adjusted Mega Millions odds would be better than the odds of winning Powerball, which currently stand at 1 in 292.2 million.
Additionally, Mega Millions will add a built-in multiplier to each ticket, automatically improving non-jackpot wins by up to 10 times. The game will void tie tickets, meaning that when a player wins, they will always win more than the cost of the ticket.
“With the new changes to the game, we will create more billionaires, because the jackpots are growing faster,” Johnston said. “And with this built-in multiplier, we’ll be creating more millionaires every week, because there’s more money coming out.”
Mega Millions and its lottery counterpart Powerball are sold in 45 states and overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Assn. The association told the Times that there are currently no plans to increase the cost of a $2 Powerball ticket.
The Mega Millions game has produced six winners of its $1 billion jackpot since its launch in 2002, according to game officials. Ticket prices jumped from $1 to $2 in 2017, and since then the game has produced more than 1,200 millionaires – an average of three million a week.
Funds raised through Mega Million ticket sales are expected to increase by 25% once prices start being raised, Johnston said.
A portion of the proceeds from all lottery ticket sales goes to schools or other charities in each state. In California, 40% of sales go to support public schools, according to the California Lottery.
About 80 cents of every Mega Million ticket sold in California now goes to schools. In April, that amount will jump to about $2 per ticket, explained Carolyn Baker, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery.
California Lottery Director Harjinder K. said: “We believe this is a successful proposition for both our players and our mission of raising additional funding for public education,” Shergill Cheema said in a statement. “With jackpots growing faster, and better odds for players, we expect better sales for Mega Millions, and therefore more money for schools.”
Baker noted that changing the price of Mega Millions in California is subject to approval by the California Lottery Commission at an upcoming meeting. But she said she had “every confidence” that the commission would agree that change was a good idea.
