They just keep rollin’! The jackpots in Mega Millions® and Powerball® continue to grow, with both now in the Top 5 for each game.
The Mega Millions® jackpot is currently the second largest in the history of that game. Not to be left out, Powerball® has the fifth-largest jackpot in that game.
Mega Millions has the next drawing up, at 10 p.m. tomorrow. Its jackpot currently stands at an estimated $750 million annuity, $550.6 million lump-sum option. The Mega Millions jackpot was last won on Sept. 15 with a ticket purchased in Wisconsin, and it hasn’t been this big for more than two years.
The next Powerball drawing will be at 9:59 p.m. Saturday. The game’s jackpot currently stands at an estimated $640 million annuity, $478.7 million lump-sum option. Powerball’s top prize was last won Sept. 16 with a ticket purchased in New York, and it hasn’t been this big for more than four years.
How Close Are We To The Records?
While the jackpots have both been growing for months, there’s still a lot of room to go before they would reach the overall record amounts.
Powerball holds the current record for a U.S. lottery prize. That jackpot of $1.586 billion was won in the drawing on Jan. 13, 2016, split by three tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee.
The largest jackpot in Mega Millions is close behind. That prize of $1.537 billion was won in the drawing on Oct. 23, 2018, by a ticket purchased in South Carolina.
Easy Pick vs. Your Own Numbers
There is debate about which option has a better chance of winning: an easy-pick ticket where the lottery terminal randomly selects the numbers involved, or a ticket where the player chooses the numbers. The answer? The odds are the same for every ticket in the game. There are more easy-pick winners because most tickets purchased are easy picks. In recent drawings, for example, more than 90 percent of the plays purchased in Iowa were easy picks.
Annuity vs. Lump-Sum Option
The jackpot winner gets to choose whether to claim the prize in annuitized payments over time or in the lump-sum option. Lotteries give estimates for both amounts in the lead-up to the drawings. The lump-sum value is the amount of money on hand from the sale of tickets in the game. The annuitized value is the amount the winner would receive in graduated payments over time. If you are buying tickets as part of a group that wins a jackpot, the entire group must decide on one option. Some members of the group can’t choose the lump sum while others choose annuity.
(I’ve posted other jackpot updates here on the blog this week, and those earlier posts include additional details you may also want check out. I’m doing my best to keep providing new angles for us all to consider as the jackpots continue to grow.)
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