The odds really are microscopic. You have a one in 175,711,536 chance of winning. That’s a 0.0000006% chance.
Still, since tickets are just $1, and the jackpot payout is double the odds of winning, if a person bought all 176 million combinations, he or she would be guaranteed to win at least $157 million.
So playing the Mega Millions on Friday could make sense … if you could afford to spend $176 million on tickets. Bear in mind, that only works if there is a single winner who doesn’t take a lump sum payout.
The 12-state lottery anticipates hundreds of millions tickets to be purchased before the 11 p.m. ET drawing Friday night for what will be at least the third-largest U.S. lottery jackpot of all time. The New York Mega Millions branch said it expects ticket sales to eclipse $1 million per hour starting with the noon hour on Friday.
“This is a huge jackpot,” said Jennifer Givner, spokeswoman for the New York Mega Millions. “There’s a lot of excitement about it, and we probably made a conservative estimate of the jackpot.”
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