Mega Millions Lottery

15th May 2008 3:03 PM

When the Mega Millions Lottery first launched back in August 1996 it was originally called The Big Game and originally the draws took place on Fridays only. February 1998 saw draws taking place on a Tuesday. There were only six states originally that took part in The Big Game, Virginia, Michigan, Maryland, Illinois, Georgia and Massachusetts . 

How to Play Mega Millions

To participate in the game players have to pick 5 numbers between 1 and 56, these are white balls and then 1 number between 1 and 46, this is the Mega Ball number. Each ticket costs $1. Tickets are available for purchase until 15 minutes before the draw takes place.

In four of the states that participate players must choose when purchasing their tickets if they will opt for the cash sum of the annuity payments. Of the four that need to choose in advance, two states offer players the chance to swap annuity payments for cash payments whilst the other two states bind the player to their original choice.

Below is a table of the odds of winning Mega Million prizes taken from Wikipedia:-

The state of Texas has the chance to multiple winnings using the “multiplier” this is only available to players in Texas. If players wish to activate this feature it costs an extra $1 this gives the player to multiple any win, other than the jackpot, up to four times.

Some of the big prize winners include:

• $390 million shared by two winners on March 6th 2007 which was the world’s largest jackpot.
• £363 million shared by two winners on May 9th 2000 which was the largest Big Game prize.
• $330 million shared by four winners on August 31st 2007 which was the largest Mega Millions shared prize.
• $315 million won by one person on November 15th 2005 which was the largest single winner.

   

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