In 53 drawings, $134 million awarded for matching just the Mega Ball; Players taking home average of 4.4X more than in the old game (a total of $266 million more in non-jackpot prizes than under the old game matrix).
RELEASE DATE: 10/9/2025
OLYMPIA, Wash. – In the six months since
Mega Millions® changed its game matrix and multiplied its prize payouts, players across the country have been winning big, and with the current jackpot standing at $575 million and climbing – with the next drawing set for this Friday, October 10 – more and more players are joining in on the fun. In the 53 drawings since the first drawing of the new
Mega Millions game on April 8:
- Two Jackpots – Two jackpots have been won, one for $112 million in Ohio on April 18 on just the fourth drawing under the new matrix, and one for $348 million in Virginia on June 27.
- 24 More Millionaires – Twenty-four additional players beyond the jackpot winners have become millionaires*, winning a combined $68 million.
- Of the 24, 10 have won $2 million, nine have won $3 million, four have won $4 million, and one has won $5 million.
- These winners bought tickets in California (6), Colorado, Florida, Georgia (2), Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey (2), New York (4), North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia (2) and Washington (2).
- 339% Prize Increase – 13.6 million players have won $344.4 million in non-jackpot prizes – a 339% increase or 4.4X the value of the $78.3 million those same wins would have paid out in the old game.
- 3X Multiplier Pays Out Most – The 3X multiplier has provided the most dollar wins across all prize levels with $113.3 million paid out, while the 2X multiplier has provided the most player wins with 6.3 million prizes awarded.
- Mega Ball Alone Pays More than Old Game Combined – $134 million in prizes have been won by players matching ONLY the Mega Ball. That’s nearly twice the $78.3 million total that would have been awarded across ALL eight non-jackpot prize tiers in the old game matrix, from the $1 million level on down.
- $41M in $10 Minimum Prize – More than 4.1 million players have won the minimum prize for a winning ticket, $10 ($5 base prize with 2X multiplier), collecting $41.8 million in prizes. The winnings at just that $10 prize level – not including the 3X ($15), 4X ($20), 5X ($25) and 10X ($50) prize winners who also matched just the Mega Ball – are more than what the 24 millionaires plus all the winners at the next four highest prize levels combined ($41 million) would have won in the old game.
- 10X Multiplier Delivers Big – More than 427,000 winners at the 10X multiplier level have won more than $28.8 million across the various prize tiers. The 10X multiplier level was introduced with this new game matrix. In the previous version of the game, players could pay $1 extra to add a non-jackpot multiplier to their play that maxed out at 5X.
- Prize Payouts Outpacing Price Increase – Prizes at every non-jackpot level are paying out between 2.8X and 7.5X the value they would have under the old game matrix, meaning prizes being awarded at every level are outpacing the game’s price adjustment.
“Six months in, the game is performing well, but we’re all waiting to see what happens when the jackpot really starts to climb,” said Joshua Johnston, Lead Director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “Now that it’s at more than a half-billion dollars, we expect more infrequent players to begin playing, and that should push the jackpot even higher.”
The new game launched in April with several enhancements, including bigger prizes at every non-jackpot prize tier, improved odds to win the jackpot, better odds overall, a larger starting jackpot, faster-growing jackpots, and no break-even prizes. So far, all have materialized except the speed at which the jackpot has been growing.
“We saw a similar pattern when the game’s ticket price last changed in 2017, but once the jackpot reached a significant amount, players returned to the game, new players began buying tickets, and the sales and jackpot curves began to spike,” added Johnston. “We expect the same thing will happen now. What’s also exciting is how much all our non-jackpot winners have won along the way thanks to the built-in multiplier in the new matrix. We’ve never paid out prizes at this level before, and players are really noticing.”
Here is a six-month summary of
Mega Millions prizes awarded (April 8-October 7):
New game prize totals are calculated based on the number of winners at each prize level and each multiplier value (2X, 3X, 4X, 5X and 10X), combined with the prize value of each of those subsets. Old game prize totals are calculated based on the number of winners at each prize level and the base prize payout under the old matrix.
* Prize amounts in California are paid on a pari-mutuel basis and will differ from the fixed prize amounts shown here. Go to https://www.calottery.com/en/draw-games/mega-millions for the California Lottery Web site and prize amounts.
Mega Millions is a national game with tickets sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since it launched in 2002,
Mega Millions has produced seven winners of billion-dollar jackpots, all in different states. Tickets cost $5 per play. Prizes range from $10 to $10 million vs. the $2 to $1 million in the old game. A full prize matrix is available
here. The overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 23; the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336. Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. Lottery profits support a wide variety of good causes and are allocated differently in each jurisdiction.
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