A Mega Millions lottery ticket purchased in Chicago, Thursday, March 29, 2022, shows the drawing date of Friday, March 30, 2022. With the Mega Millions jackpot over $500 million, Illinois picked the right week to become the first state in the nation to sell lottery tickets online, and other states are watching closely to see how it plays out. They're also wondering if the payoff will prompt Illinois to take the next big step: launching online poker, blackjack and other casino games.(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Mega Millions lottery ticket purchased in Chicago, Thursday, March 29, 2022, shows the cartoon date of Friday, March 30, 2022. With the Mega Millions jackpot over $500 million, Illinois picked the right week to become the start state in the nation to sell lottery tickets online, and other states are watching closely to see how it plays out. They're also wondering if the payoff will prompt Illinois to take the next big footstep: launching online poker, blackjack and other casino games.(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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The Mega Millions jackpot is at a world record $640 one thousand thousand. Merely earlier y'all outset thinking well-nigh what you're going to do with all of that cash - there are some basic things everyone with a ticket needs to know, particularly if y'all're lucky enough to exist holding the winning numbers.

When are the drawings held?

The Mega Millions drawing will be held Fri from Atlanta at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 10:00 p.m. Central Time, 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

What's the latest I can buy a Mega Millions ticket?

If you're a last infinitesimal kind of person - even with more than than a half-a-billion on the line - not to worry. Yous can buy tickets up to 15 minutes earlier the drawing. (ten:45 p.one thousand. Eastern Time, nine:45 p.m. Primal Fourth dimension, 7:45 p.m. Pacific Time) Except if you live in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where 9:50 p.m. is the deadline.

Where can I play Mega Millions?

You tin buy Mega Millions tickets from lottery retailers/agents in 42 states plus the District of Columbia and the U. South. Virgin Islands; a total of 44 jurisdictions. The eight states that exercise not take Mega Millions drawings are Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Alaska, and Hawaii.

What are the odds of winning?

The math is clear: The more than tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning. So, if you lot buy 10 tickets filled out 10 different ways, your odds of winning the jackpot 10 in 176 meg.

Mike Catalano, chairman of the mathematics department at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South.D., said he covers the odds of winning in lottery games with his students to show them but how unlikely it is to win large.

You are near 50 times more probable to become struck by lightning than winning the lottery, based on the 90 people a year getting struck by lightning. Based on other U.Due south. averages, you're about 8,000 times more probable to be murdered than to win the lottery, and about twenty,000 times more likely to die in a auto crash than hitting the lucky numbers, Catalano said.

What could I do with all of that money?

Assuming the jackpot were $540 one thousand thousand, that means for one winner the lump sum would exist $389 million, and the terminal estimate after land and federal taxes is around $253 million.

To put $253 million into context, you could:

-- pay off 1/10,000 of the U.S. debt;

-- [on boilerplate] feed a family of four for 22,381 years OR feed 22,381 families of 4 for i year;

-- buy 281 million Twinkies;

-- buy 1,265 seats/trips to outer infinite aboard Virgin Galactic;

-- get-go a visitor and pay ten employees $100,000 for 253 years;

-- buy Michael Jackson'due south estate [$23.9 Million], Britney Spears' mansion [$2.ix million], Madonna'southward Beverly Hills mansion [$28 million], Jerry Seinfeld's Colorado manor [$18 1000000] and Michael Jordan's Chicago-area estate [$29 one thousand thousand] AND Nonetheless have $150 million remaining.

every day

:

-- to burn through information technology in a year, you'd need to spend $693,150 per day

-- to burn down through it in 80 years, yous'd need to spend $viii,658 per day

If y'all win - should you lot take an annuity or lump sum?

Bottom line: Get a fiscal adviser, accountant and lawyer.

Mega Millions does non have the exact number of lottery winners that take taken a lump sum versus annuity payments, but a spokesperson for Mega Millions says most take the cash in a lump sum.

According to Mega Millions, a jackpot winner can choose the annuity selection of annual payments over a 26-twelvemonth-period or just a lump sum of cash.

Did y'all know? If you were in a high-yield savings account, yielding 0.8%, you lot'd end the year with $255,038,930. That's more than $2 one thousand thousand in involvement even with the current extremely low involvement rates.

What happens if at that place are multiple winners?

With a jackpot this large, experts say, there also is a greater chance of multiple winners. If you have to share the jackpot with even one other winner, you've lost $30 1000000.

What fuels lottery mania?

It's hope.

A 2008 written report from Journal of Adventure and Uncertainty explained that households earning under $13,000 per yr spend about 9 per centum of their income on lottery tickets on average, or around $645 a twelvemonth.

Merely for some, the chance — nonetheless small-scale — of instantaneous, enormous wealth is leading to long lines at convenience stores in 42 states and Washington, D.C., where Mega Millions tickets are sold.  Information technology's why David Kramer, a lawyer in Lincoln, bought a Mega Millions ticket Thursday.

"To me, the value of the lottery ticket isn't the realistic opportunity to win," he said. "It's the fact that for 3 days, the daydreaming time well-nigh what I would practice if I won is great amusement and, frankly, a very nice release from a normal day."

Some final words of wisdom...

Lottery officials are happy to take Friday'south record Mega Millions jackpot fueling ticket sales, but even they circumspection confronting spending large amounts of coin per person in the hopes of striking it rich.

"We certainly know we get more than puddle play ... people coming in making very large purchases for a grouping," said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Urbandale, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association that oversees the Mega Millions, Powerball and other lotteries. "When people ask me, I just tell them that the odds of a lottery game make information technology a game of fate. Just buy a ticket, sit back and see if fate points a finger at you for that day."

Contains material from The Associated Press.

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