Thread: Mega Millions jackpot reaches $312,000,000 Friday

Tonight's Mega Millions jackpot reaches $244 million

By THE HERALD Chippewa.com |
Posted: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 1:29 pm | (0) Comments

The jackpot for tonight’s Mega Millions lottery drawing in Wisconsin is $244 million.

Players in the lottery game pick five numbers and then a Megaball number. The odds of winning the jackpot is one in 197,911,536.

The multi-state drawing is played in over 40 states on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The jackpot for Wednesday’s Powerball drawing is also inching upward. That prize is estimated at $101 million. Powerball is drawn on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

http://chippewa.com/news/local/article_ ... 03286.html

$304,000,000 Mega Millions has just rolled over

Mar 23, 2011 ...
A bit of quick, possibly incomplete, research shows that Powerball has rolled at 300 and 305, but that Mega Millions has not rolled from an ...
www.lotterypost.com/thread/229330-

Published: March 24, 2011
Updated: 5:22 p.m.

Friday’s lottery jackpot hits $312 million

By DOUG IRVING
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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ORANGE – Freddie Munoz didn't hesitate to slide his dollar bill across the counter, not with $312 million at stake. He figured it was a small price to pay for a little piece of hope: "Maybe it's me."

The odds of hitting that jackpot in Friday night's Mega Millions drawing ranks somewhere below being eaten by a shark or hit by lightning. But then again, it is the sixth largest jackpot in the history of the game.

Cesar Ortiz changes the number to $312 million from $304 million on the lottery sign at the 7-Eleven on Chapman Avenue in Orange Thursday morning. The drawing will be Friday.

You get excited, you know? That chance, that maybe," said Munoz, a 43-year-old plumber from Orange. "I figure one day I'll hit it and take care of my family, all that good stuff."

Mega Millions is a national game, with players from California and 41 other states vying for a piece of the pot. There are smaller prizes available, but to win that estimated $312 million jackpot, a player has to match five numbers and a Mega number.

The odds of doing that are around 1 in 176 million.

That makes your chance of winning the jackpot about 15 times less likely than a beach-goer's chance of being attacked by a shark (1 in 11.5 million, according to dated statistics from the International Shark Attack File). And about 234 times less likely than being struck by lightning this year (1 in 750,000, according to the National Weather Service).

In fact, if you want a sure bet compared to the Mega Millions jackpot, pick a kid on your high school's football team. He has 140,000 times the chance of going pro than you do of hitting the jackpot (1 in 1,250, according to the NCAA).

But for a dollar, John Kaloper of North Tustin had no problem buying a shot at $312 million, no matter how slim the chances. He figured even a partial match of his numbers would win him enough money to help put his grandchildren through college.

"That's more money than you'd make in probably 15 years," Kaloper, 67, a retired mortgage broker, said of even the smaller Mega Millions prizes. "What the heck. You take a chance."

That kind of chance has paid off big in Orange County before. In 2005, a group of coworkers at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Garden Grove split a $315 million Mega Millions jackpot – the biggest ever won in California.

The biggest ever won, anywhere: $390 million, in March 2007.

The winner of Friday's $312 million jackpot can take the money over 26 years, or ask for a one-time payout of $198 million and change. The federal government will take between 25 and 30 percent in taxes, California Lottery spokesman Bill Ainsworth said – which works out to around $50 million or $60 million from the cash payout.

The state does not tax lottery winnings, Ainsworth said.

But it does get a little money from every ticket sold. About a third of the dollars generated by the California Lottery – through games such as Mega Millions – are given to the state for education, Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said. At least 50 percent goes to pay prizes, and the rest pays for advertising, administration and other operating costs.

Lottery officials in California alone expect to sell around $20 million in Mega Millions tickets just in the few days leading up to Friday's drawing,

Ainsworth said. He didn't have an estimate for the number of tickets sold in a typical week but said the volume this week "is a lot more than normal."
Hendra Sulistio, 51, added two of his dollars to the pot for a shot at the fortune. He went to a 7-Eleven in Orange to buy oil, not game tickets. But a Mega Millions sign advertising the huge jackpot brought him to the counter, wallet out.

"Hey, why not?" he said. "If I win -- hey!"

Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/news/jackpot- ... -mega.html

what would you do if you won the lotto?

Never won any prize money till now but lotto is fun.