Looking around the world today, there are lotteries, and there are super lotteries. Into the latter category fall ones like Spain’s legendary El Gordo that can make a whole community very happy over Christmas. Also featuring in this group is the United States’ Mega Millions.
This, on the other hand, can put a huge sum into the hands of one individual, as we shall see.
A brief history of the lottery
First launched back in 2002 under the name of The Big Game, six years later it became Mega Millions. In its early days only six states were involved, a number that has now risen to 45 with only Alabama, Alaska, Utah, Hawaii and Nevada not selling tickets. Over the years the format and prize structure has seen a number of changes and today the starting jackpot is $40 million.
How it works
The draw is held at 11pm EST every Tuesday and Friday in the Atlanta, Georgia studios of WSB-TV in a show hosted by presenters John Crow and Carol Blackmon – in the UK this is around 4am on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
In the draw, five balls are drawn from a total of 70 and there is also a sixth gold Mega Ball that is drawn from a second set of 25. To win the jackpot you need to match all six numbers. There are then fixed prizes for the lower tiers ranging from $1 million for five matching numbers minus the Mega Ball down to $1 for just matching this but no other numbers. Two different machines are used to select the balls and are rotated each draw.
“Thanks for the heads-up, California Lott” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by pirateyjoe
Playing from the UK
Unfortunately, playing directly from this country isn’t possible. However, there is a way that UK residents can experience the excitement of the game and that’s through playing Mega Millions online through Lottoland. In this, the same numbers are used as in the actual draw but the prize fund is different. So although it won’t mean the truly huge prizes on offer in the actual Mega Millions, lucky winners still receive quite a tidy sum.
The prizes
The actual prizes that can be won in the real draw are quite mind blowing.
To give an example, the al- time record came back in October 2018 when one lucky winner in South Carolina suddenly found themselves in possession of a $1.537 billion fortune. This was nearly matched in July 2022 when an Illinois lottery fan scooped $1.34 billion and there have been many more wins of hundreds of millions of dollars.
A very popular feature of the Mega Millions draw is the Megaplier. For an extra $2 a ticket, players can multiply any non-jackpot wins by up to five times.
It has proved to be so popular that this may well be a feature that could be included in the UK Lottery when the new operator Allwyn takes over from Camelot in 2024.
In the meantime, we’ll all be keeping our eyes on the action over the Atlantic for the next mega winners.