USA TODAY International Edition
Mega Millions jackpot near $ 1 billion
One in 302,575,350. Those are the odds of winning the $ 970 million prize that is up for grabs in Friday’s Mega Millions drawing.
During months of buildup and the longest stretch in the game’s history without a jackpot winner, millions in smaller prizes were won as the jackpot crept up. Now it’s the third- largest prize in U. S. lottery history, if claimed at its amount now.
“The mood is euphoric. This is what we live for,” Maryland Lottery Director Gordon Medenica told USA TODAY on Thursday.
Adding to the excitement for Medenica: A winning ticket for Wednesday’s Powerball was sold in the small town of Lonaconing, Maryland, at Coney Market. The jackpot reached $ 731.1 million, making it the fifth- largest U. S. lottery jackpot ever.
But just because there was a winning ticket Wednesday, don’t get your hopes up that you are going to win on Friday, said Ronald L. Wasserstein, executive director of the American Statistical Association.
“People confuse their chances of winning with the chances of someone winning. Sooner or later, someone will win that jackpot. That’s certain. What’s just about nearly as certain is that it won’t be you!” Wasserstein wrote in an email to USA TODAY.
But really, how low are my odds?
Understanding a 1 in 302,575,350 chance of something is tough, Wasserstein said.
Stand on the corner of a football field and start laying out dollar bills until you’ve placed 302,575,350 of them: That’ll take up about 585 football fields, he said.
What if you had pennies and placed 302,575,350 in stacks as tall as the Empire State Building? It’d be more than 1,000 Empire State Building- tall penny stacks.
“Humans are not naturally equipped to understand such big numbers,” Wasserstein added.
The odds of winning are 1 in 302,575,350 because there are 302,575,350 possible combinations of six numbers when picking five numbers between 1 and 70 and then a sixth, separate number between 1 and 25, he said.
The chances of winning Powerball’s jackpot are a little better: Roughly 1 in 292.2 million, but that’s still a long shot.
To feel as if they are increasing their chances, some people turn to lucky numbers, anniversaries or birthdays. Others study past jackpot drawings to notice trends ( 22, for example, has been drawn 21 times as the Mega Ball in the 337 drawings since Mega Millions last changed its number matrix in 2017, according to lottery tracker USAMega. com.)
But there’s no real advantage there, Wasserstein said.
“Each number in the first five numbers has a 1/ 70 chance of being drawn. That’s about 1.4%. At any given point, some numbers will be drawn at a slightly higher rate than that, and others lower. Over time, those percentages tend to even out. So one might think the best strategy would be to pick the numbers that had been picked less often. But the math doesn’t support that approach any more than it supports picking the numbers drawn more often,” he explained.
“If people feel they have some lucky numbers, more power to them. It’s another aspect of why playing the game is entertaining,” said Medenica, who added that most people opt for random numbers when buying their tickets.
The only thing someone could do to increase their chances of winning? Buy more tickets. But those are still not great odds.
“If I buy two, my chances are doubled. If I buy 10, my chances are increased tenfold. So, wow, let me buy 100, then at a cost of $ 200 I have increased my chances by 100 times!” Wasserstein said a player might reason.
“Unfortunately, that just means that I have a 1 in 3,025,753.5 chance of winning. Rounding that to 1 in 3 million is still a very tiny probability.”
What happens if I do win?
Call a lawyer, and stay quiet. Seriously. One of the worst things a lottery winner can do is immediately spread the news, Andrew Stoltmann, a securities attorney in Chicago, told USA TODAY in 2016. Lottery winners “become one of most heavily targeted marks in the entire world,” said Stoltmann, who has represented multiple lottery winners in lawsuits over investment scams.
Many financial planners advise lottery jackpot winners to assemble a team of advisers who can help them navigate their financial windfall, guiding their investments, taxes and spending.