Mega Millions

People across America all buy mountains of tickets in order to try and win the Mega Millions lottery. As the cash prize snowballs every time no winner is picked, more and more people across the United States try their luck to win. It helps that all of these lottery tickets are available nearly anywhere; from mom and pop stores to gas stations, and even membership shopping outlets. You don’t even have to stop looking in these locations for mega millions tickets.

Lottery draws that do not pick a winner just goes to show how important it is to be able to increase your chances of winning. Many people have gone through great lengths to try and improve their odds of winning the mega millions and powerball lotteries. People are not above spending excessive amounts for fortune telling, how-to books, and even forging their own lottery tickets if they are desperate enough.

How to Play Mega Millions

Lottery tickets are one of the most widely-available items on the market today. You can hardly pass a grocery store, membership shopping outlet, or even a street corner without seeing an advertisement for the lottery. The Mega Millions in particular is one of the most popular renditions of the lottery, with millions of American citizens participating every day.

In the Mega Millions lottery, players pick six numbers from two separate sets of numbers. Within this pool, players choose five different numbers from one to fifty-six, and one number from the Easy Pick range of one to forty-six. The jackpot is won by matching all six of these numbers to a drawing, which is either televised, or appears in a publication like a newspaper results release.

The Mega Millions doesn’t just hand out millions of dollars in prize money; smaller amounts ranging from $2 to $250,000 are awarded after every draw. Every state has its own Megaplier, which is essentially a cash multiplier, making each prize drawing different. This means people can be refunded for the cost of their tickets at the very least.

The Megaplier works as follows:

• Participating states may charge an extra $1 for players to use the Megaplier function.
• Players can increase prize money winnings by 2, 3 or 4 times, but not including the primary mega millions cash money prize.
• Any prize money won, excluding the main jackpot prize, will then be multiplied by 2, 3, or 4 times if you win. If you win a $5,000 prize with a 3x Megaplier, you will get a whopping $15,000 prize money.

Should you be the lucky holder of a winning ticket, you are given two options to receive the jackpot money prize:

• Lump sum payment – Winners of the mega millions are eligible to receive their whole prize money total in one, easy, lump sum payment.
• Annuity option – The mega millions prize money amount can also be divided across 26 annual payments.

How to Play the Powerball

The Powerball is another form of lottery that has remained wildly popular since its introduction years ago.  Millions of Americans flock to their television sets every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 PM Eastern Time to see if they have won, and even when they don’t, they still line up for more and more tickets every time.

Players can win the Powerball by matching one of their numbers in the “Nine Ways to Win.” The jackpot is won by matching all five white balls to your chosen numbers, in any order, along with the red Powerball. Smaller cash denominations can be won if you have less than five matching numbers on your ticket.

The cash denominations, excluding the jackpot prize in Powerball are as follows:

•  $200,000 for five matching balls
•  $10,000 for four matching balls, plus the Powerball
•  $100 for four matching balls, or three plus the Powerball
•  $7 for three matching balls, or two plus the Powerball
•  $4 for one matching ball, plus the Powerball
•  $3 for matching just the Powerball

The Powerball also has a feature similar to the Megaplier called the Power Play. The Power Play works the same way, in that it multiplies the winning amount by certain denominations by 2, 3, 4, and 5 times. The Power Play multiplier is picked at random during each televised drawing.

The Power Play has a few unique quirks and mechanics going for it, though:

• Winners of the $200,000 cash prize who also have a winning Power Play Multipier will automatically win $1,000,000, regardless of what the multiplier is.
• Any prize money amounts that exceed the excess for both the Powerball and the Power Play lotteries may be reduced.

Odds of Winning the Powerball

The official Powerball website states the odds of having winning combinations for both the Powerball and Power Play.

•   Grand Prize – One in 195,249,054
•   $200,000 – One in 5,138,133
•   $10,000 – One in 723,144.64
•   $100 – One in 19,030.12, or one in 13,644.24 for winners with a matching Powerball
•   $7 – One in 359.06, or one in 787.17 for winners with a matching Powerball
•   $4 – One in 123.48
•   $3 – One in 61.74

Based on these statistics, you should be able to come up with a winning Powerball strategy. You can increase your odds of winning both the Powerball and the Mega Millions, if you have are particularly talented with calculating odds or crunching the numbers.

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