Mega Millions FAQ

$5 per play (multiplier included). There is no add-on to buy. Since April 2025 every play includes a multiplier of 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X, assigned at random when you buy and printed on the ticket, and it applies to every non-jackpot prize.

The jackpot odds are 1 in 290,472,336 per play. You pick 5 numbers from 1–70 plus a Mega Ball from 1–24, and the jackpot needs all six to match. The odds of winning any prize at all are 1 in 23.

Drawings are held Tuesday and Friday at 11:00 PM ET. Each state sets its own cut-off for ticket sales before the drawing, so check your state lottery for the exact time.

There are nine ways to win. Matching only the Mega Ball wins the smallest prize, and the jackpot takes all five white balls plus the Mega Ball. One or two white balls without the Mega Ball win nothing. The ways-to-win page lists every tier.

After each jackpot win the advertised jackpot goes back to $50 million, then grows with ticket sales until someone wins it again.

The advertised jackpot is the annuity: one payment right away, then 29 annual payments, each 5% larger than the one before. The cash option is a single payment of the money actually in the jackpot prize pool. For the record jackpots won since 2022 it has been roughly 43% to 58% of the advertised figure, depending largely on interest rates. Both options are taxable.

Yes. Lottery prizes are taxable income. When a prize minus the cost of the ticket is more than $5,000, the lottery withholds 24% for federal income tax, and the tax you finally owe can be higher than that. State tax depends on where you bought the ticket and where you live.

Each state sets its own deadline, from 90 days to one year after the drawing depending on where the ticket was sold. Check your state lottery's website for the exact period.

That depends on the state where the ticket was sold. Some states let winners keep their names private, some release them, and some allow a claim through a trust or other legal entity. Our state pages give the rule for each state.

No. Every combination has the same odds in every drawing. Hot and cold numbers describe past draws only; we publish them because people like to look, and the statistics page explains how they're counted.

From a commercial lottery results feed that our servers check every two minutes, so results usually appear here within minutes of the drawing. The official record is megamillions.com: always confirm a result there before acting on it.