Every Tuesday, Wed, Friday and Saturday nighttime, Americans everywhere tune in to the live numbers draw of Mega Millions or Powerball. According to Statista, the number of U.S. households who played the lottery at their local retailer in the year 2018 amounted to 4.eight 1000000.

How Do You Play Mega Millions?

For Mega Millions, players brand vi picks from 2 separate pools of numbers; five unlike numbers from i to seventy, which are white balls, and one number from one to 25, which is the gold Mega Ball. They can also select Easy Pick or Quick Pick, which generates numbers randomly.

Mega Millions
Mega Millions lottery tickets sit inside a convenience shop in Lower Manhattan, October 23, 2018 in New York City. Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

To win the jackpot, players demand to match all half dozen winning numbers in a drawing. The big prize starts at $forty million and grows by a minimum of $5 million per draw each fourth dimension the jackpot isn't won. According to the Mega Millions website, at that place are a total of 9 means to win a prize ranging from the jackpot down to $2.

It costs $2 to play the Mega Millions, still, in some states, there is a special offer chosen "Just the Jackpot" that is available. This allows players to play simply for the jackpot and no other prize. Information technology costs $iii and the player receives ii plays for the jackpot only.

Also, the Megaplier offers non-jackpot winners to increase their prizes ii, three, iv or fives times the amount. Information technology costs an additional $1 per play. The Megaplier is drawn before each Mega Millions draw every Tuesday and Friday dark. From a puddle of 15 balls, five are marked with 2X, six with 3X, iii with 4X and one with 5X.

How Do Y'all Play Powerball®?

Like Mega Millions, Powerball® costs $2 per play and is fatigued twice a calendar week, just this fourth dimension on a Wednesday and Saturday evening. Players select five numbers from one to 69 for the white balls; then select one number from one to 26 for the ruby Powerball. Again, these numbers can be marked on a play skid or can be selected randomly past the lottery final, but like Mega Millions.

Powerball ticket
A man buys a Powerball ticket at the Shell Gateway store on March 26, 2019 in Boynton Embankment, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In terms of how players tin can win Powerball, it's very much the same as Mega Millions. Notwithstanding, instead of the Megaplier, this game has Ability Play®. For an additional $i per play, the Ability Play® feature can multiply non-jackpot prizes past two, three, four, v or ten times the amount. Every bit Mega Millions, the multiplier number is randomly selected earlier each drawing.

The 10X multiplier is only in play when the advertised jackpot annuity is $150 million or less, and the Match 5 prize with Power Play is always $2 million.

Which Mega Millions Numbers Appear Most Oftentimes?

Given that the aim of the game is to win the lottery, there are many people that effort to "beat the system" to win the jackpot. For Mega Millions, there is a i in 24 chance of winning whatever prize. However, the odds to win the jackpot spring to 1 in 302,575,350.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions prizes are as follows:

  • Jackpot: ane in 302,575,350
  • $ane,000,000: 1 in 12,607,306
  • $10,000: 1 in 931,001
  • $500: 1 in 38,792
  • $200: 1 in 14,547
  • $ten: 1 in 606
  • $10: 1 in 693
  • $4: 1 in 89
  • $2: i in 37

All this being said, Lottonumbers.com has listed the winning numbers that have come up the most during Mega Millions drawings, so it could be worth using some of these for your next play.

  • 62: Drawn 21 times
  • i: Drawn xx times
  • 10: Drawn 20 times
  • 28: Drawn nineteen times
  • 42: Drawn nineteen times
  • xiv: Drawn xviii times
  • 70: Drawn 17 times
  • 22: Fatigued xvi times
  • 34: Fatigued 16 times
  • ii: Drawn 15 times
  • four: Drawn fifteen times
  • 17: Drawn 15 times
  • 24: Drawn 15 times
  • 29: Drawn 15 times
  • 31: Drawn xv times
  • 38: Fatigued fifteen times
  • 43: Drawn 15 times
  • 59: Drawn 15 times

1 mathematician, Stefan Mandel, developed an algorithm to summate the most promising winning numbers. He won the lottery fourteen times. There is a website dedicated to his theory with a checker that tin can assistance jackpot winner hopefuls find their lucky digits for the Powerball lottery.

How Much Can You Win Playing Mega Millions?

There have been varying jackpot wins in the Mega Millions. There was a jackpot winner on its very first drawing, where the winner from Illinois took domicile $28 meg. There was another winner a week later.

Jackson North Carolina Jackpot Winner Poweball
The Powerball jackpot winner is Charles W. Jackson Jr. from N Carolina. Credit NC Education Lottery

Co-ordinate to its website, since the game began in 2002, there have been 184 jackpots won by 208 private tickets. Of these, 18 jackpots awarded were over $300 meg, including the Mega Millions tape of $one.537 billion won in Southward Carolina in Oct 2018.

Other large unmarried prizes have been $543 million won in California on July 24, 2018, $536 million in Indiana on July 8, 2016, and $533 1000000 won in New Jersey on March 30, 2018.

Too, it may be unlucky for some, but Fri the 13th has seen six lucky Mega Millions jackpot winners. Michigan has been especially lucky, with four winning jackpots (June 2008, May 2011, June 2014, and one shared with Rhode Island in October 2017). A Fri the 13th jackpot was as well won in New York in March 2009 and in Ohio in November 2015.

In 2019, there have been four jackpots won to engagement.

  • On January 1, $437 million was won on a single ticket sold in New York; a group of 23 Long Island co-workers claimed that prize
  • On March 1, a $273 one thousand thousand jackpot was won in New Jersey
  • A $fifty million prize was won in Missouri on March 12
  • On June seven, a $522 million jackpot was won in California