Mega Millions $640 Million

• DeyDurkie5

  

  If no one wins, the jackpot for tuesday's drawing will be 950million
• gut

  OSH;1132320 wrote:The first ball has to be the first number on the ticket, the second ball the second number...and so forth.
  
  So, if you match the first, third, and fifth balls, then you match three balls and win $150 or whatever the pot is.
  
  You don't win if your first, second, and fourth numbers match the first, third, and fifth balls.

  No. Each of the 5 is drawn only once, so order does not matter (they are listed in ascending order on the ticket). The mega ball can then be any of the 55(?) numbers again.
  
  My question is how does the computer picks work? I thought it would, in the past, give you one of the remaining numbers not already picked at random, so the longer you wait then theoretically the better your chances of holding a unique ticket. But that seems like too technically advanced, especially when you consider what happens when every number has been picked (fairly likely for this week).
• gorocks99

  

  DeyDurkie5;1132329 wrote:If no one wins, the jackpot for tuesday's drawing will be 950million

  With over 600 million tickets sold for this drawing, the only odds that might be worse than no one winning tonight's drawing are the odds to actually win tonight's drawing.
• gut

  DeyDurkie5;1132329 wrote:If no one wins, the jackpot for tuesday's drawing will be 950million

  For $172M or whatever it would be, you could theoretically buy every single number. Not sure how one could even accomplish that, but you'd have to bank that only 1 or 2 others won in order to make a profit (with a $950M jackpot). Would be hilarious if someone like Soros bought all the tickets and had the lone winner.
• gut

  gorocks99;1132332 wrote:With over 600 million tickets sold for this drawing, the only odds that might be worse than no one winning tonight's drawing are the odds to actually win tonight's drawing.

  That's over 3X the number of possible combinations, so we should see at least 3 winners, but could easily have 5 or 6. I wonder what the biggest scenario is - i.e. people who pick their own numbers there's probably some fairly common combos that might have a few dozen tickets.
  
  Not that anyone would cry over sharing with any number of people, but thinking you might be the sole winner of $315M after tax vs. $52.5M (split 6 ways) is still a different ballgame. $315M I'm figuring out how many of my friends and family I can make millionaires, along with maybe funding my own charity. For $52M you just have to scale down you ambitions a bit.
• chicago510

  

  Lol, it would suck (relatively speaking) to win---and be spending your $400 mil in your head---only to realize you have to split it 5 ways.
• bases_loaded

  

  http://mashable.com/2012/03/30/mega-millions-jackpot-crazy-gadgets/
  
  I'm getting the sub and buggatti for sure
• 2kool4skool

  

  The chances of a lone winner have to be next to nothing. For one, there's such a large pool of players. Secondly, human selected numbers will generate a pattern. For instance, lots of 1-12's and 1-31's because of birthdays, lucky numbers are usually single digits, etc.
• gut

  chicago510;1132342 wrote:Lol, it would suck (relatively speaking) to win---and be spending your $400 mil in your head---only to realize you have to split it 5 ways.

  Haha....Worry would immediately set in as you realize you won't get $400M, and then start wondering how many you have to share with. Imagine waking up the next morning to discover by some incredible fluke there were 100 winning tickets. $4M!!!!
• gut

  2kool4skool;1132349 wrote:The chances of a lone winner have to be next to nothing. For one, there's such a large pool of players. Secondly, human selected numbers will generate a pattern. For instance, lots of 1-12's and 1-31's because of birthdays, lucky numbers are usually single digits, etc.

  Maybe. That other post said there was only a 94% chance someone wins, so I'd have to guess there's still like a 1-2% chance of a lone winner - very small, but still much greater than your odds of winning.
  
  If most people go with the machine picks - which I'd guess with a bunch of infrequent players jumping in - you figure 3-4 winners, but I have no idea how many draws you need to pick all 172M numbers at random - their estimate is @3X equates to 94% or so coverage. If number like you're talking about hit then you could be talking 6-10 winners, maybe more.
• OSH

  

  gut;1132331 wrote:No. Each of the 5 is drawn only once, so order does not matter (they are listed in ascending order on the ticket). The mega ball can then be any of the 55(?) numbers again.
  
  My question is how does the computer picks work? I thought it would, in the past, give you one of the remaining numbers not already picked at random, so the longer you wait then theoretically the better your chances of holding a unique ticket. But that seems like too technically advanced, especially when you consider what happens when every number has been picked (fairly likely for this week).

  Ah...makes sense. It doesn't show it making that much sense on the lottery website. But...I also didn't have my tickets there in front of me as I watched the "how to play" stuff.
  
  I think the MegaBall is 1-46. The others are 1-56.
• dave

  line was 10 deep at 9:30 at a suburban kroger. can't imagine what some of the gas station lines are like in busy areas.
• ts1227

  

  dave;1132371 wrote:line was 10 deep at 9:30 at a suburban kroger. can't imagine what some of the gas station lines are like in busy areas.

  A store in Salem that occasionally cracks $1,000 in total machine lottery game sales (they sell a ton of instants, which aren't included in that total), did over $6,000 in Mega Millions today.
• chicago510

  

  What is the profit for the merchants? Has to be something decent or they wouldn't have those huge machines on the counters
• ts1227

  

  chicago510;1132376 wrote:What is the profit for the merchants? Has to be something decent or they wouldn't have those huge machines on the counters

  Online games are like 3.5%, if I recall. I know instants are 5.5%
• chicago510

  

  Moment of truth on ABC. I don't even have a ticket but I think the hype is fun.
• ts1227

  

  YOUR NUMBERS:
  
  2, 4, 23, 38, 46
  Mega Ball: 23
  
  IF NO ONE HITS: $975 Million
• chicago510

  

  2-4-23-38-46 MB-23
  
  
  
  2, 4 and 23 were probably popular plays
• SportsAndLady

  

  Any you guys win?
• WebFire

  Sweet! I didn't hit a single number!
• 2kool4skool

  

  Can they tell if somebody one yet?
• OSH

  

  Nothing here. Stupid Ohio Lottery website wouldn't load either.
  
  I got 2 numbers on one ticket but missed on the MegaBall. That's it.
• WebFire

  2kool4skool;1132389 wrote:Can they tell if somebody one yet?

  I think they know within the hour.
• LJ

  

  Nothin
• Lovejoy1984

  

  Anyone have the numbers?
  
  Or was that what was posted above?