A Revised Look at the Mega Millions Megaplier Option

Introduction
When the Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries began cross selling in the previous proprietary States in early 2010, the Megaplier Option was immediately available in the original Powerball states. This has been a popular option to increase prize payouts especially when the Jackpot prizes were low. To help stimulate even more interest, Powerball established a fixed $1 million second place prize for those players who bought the Powerplay. This change helped to increase sales of this option.

To keep pace, Mega Million states pushed to implement the Megaplier. More importantly, the Megaplier second place prize was also increased to a guaranteed $1 million as well. At the time of this writing, nearly every state that sells Mega Millions tickets now offers the Megaplier Option with a fixed $1M prize for those fortunate to match all 5 of the white balls, but not the Megaball.

Thanks to a comment written by an Anonymous author, we were alerted to the recent prize structure change. This post provides the an up-to-date revision of our original Megaplier research post written in December 20007 entitled Should You Buy the Power Play, Sizzler, or Megaplier?

As Mega Million lottery interest has grown since the January 2011 record Jackpot of $355 milllion, many players continue to ask:

Should I Buy the Megaplier Option?

As originally advised,
The correct answer remains both Yes and No!
It depends on the size of the Jackpot,
And Your Strategy.

How would you know when to buy it?
If your lottery playing strategy is to win the Jackpot, we advise that you always buy the Megaplier option whenever the current jackpot value is below its Jackpot Breakeven level.

• For Mega Millions, Breakeven is now $53.1 million: Buy the Megaplier Option whenever the Jackpot is below this value. Never above this. Buy 2 tickets instead.

However, if you strategy is to maximize your prize winnings by religiously playing a consistent set of  numbers, we recommend that you always buy the Megaplier.


Effect of Change?
Because the 2nd place prize is now always fixed, the amount of money returned to Megaplier players has also increased. The net effect of this increase means that the Mega Millions breakeven has increased by $5.9 million from $47.2M to $53.1M.

Note, however, that as the Jackpot increases above its minimum, only the probability weighted amount of jackpot money returned to players increases. This means that all other prize payouts are fixed. Thus, there is always a fixed point (jackpot level) at which the return of single ticket payouts equals the return of the Megaplier ticket payouts.

As lottery players, we want to play the option that returns the most money back to us, the players. As you will see below, your option changes depending on the jackpot level.

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Mega Millions Megaplier
When a player buys the Megaplier option, all  prizes that the player wins, except the Jackpot, will be multiplied by either 2, 3, or 4, depending on what Megaplier was selected. Additionally, the new rules fix the 2nd place prize Megaplier multiplier at 4, regardless of what was picked. This means that the top non-jackpot prize for matching 5 white balls is always $1,000,000. Accounting for this new change, the probability weighted average of all other non-jackpot prizes remains at a multiplier equal to 3.476 times.

Based on this information, the graph below illustrates both the expected Megaplier return (in blue) against the expected return of a single Mega Millions ticket without the Megaplier (in red).

When the jackpot is set to the minimum $12 million, Megaplier returns $0.367 (increased from $0.350) of each dollar received, compared to $0.250 for those without the option.

When the jackpot level reaches $53.1 million, both tickets with and without the Megaplier returns $0.484 of each dollar received. We refer to this $53.1 million as the Jackpot Breakeven level. (Note that previously, the breakeven return was $0.451 at a $47.2M level).

Above this breakeven level, tickets purchased without Megaplier return more to the players. When the jackpot grows to $90 million, $0.694 is returned to straight ticket holders compared to only $0.589 (previously $0.572) to those who bought the Megaplier.







Because the new Megaplier rule is now in effect in most Mega Millions states, the overall monetary return of money received has increased.

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Conclusion
We suggest that all lottery playersshould purchase Lottery Tickets like they would any other investment, and always seek the highest return on their dollars. Thus, when the Mega Millions jackpot is below $53.1 million, the Megaplier should be purchased. When the jackpot is above this level, never purchase the Megaplier. Go for the Jackpot instead.


Learn More
To learn more about this subject, visit our in-depth pages that provide the detailed numbers behind each of these options.

• Revised Mega Millions Megaplier Analysis (February 2011)
• Superceded Mega Millions Megaplier Analysis (Original)
• Powerball Power Play Analysis
• Hot Lotto Sizzler Analysis

The Average 18 Year Old Has 6,255 Chances to Win the Lottery

Have you ever wondered how many chances you have to win a major lottery in your lifetime?

We too have asked ourselves this question many times. So we consulted the U.S. World Factbook and found the average life expectancy of a U.S. resident is 78.4 years. Since a person must be 18 years old to legally purchase lottery tickets, we find that a person has about 60 years in which they can buy Powerball, Mega Millions, or other lottery tickets.

Since these major lotteries have drawings twice a week, there are 104 opportunities to win each year. Multiplying 104 times 60 years, we obtain 6,240. Because of leap years, a player gets another 15 drawings to play. Adding 6,240 and 15 together, we find that there are a total of 6,255 drawings that may be played

Thus, we conclude, that: The Average 18 Year Old Has 6,255 Chances to Win the Lottery

As you get older, the number of opportunities becomes smaller. You can check the table below to see how many drawing you may have left to play.

Age	Drawings
18	6,255
20	6,047
25	5,526
30	5,005
35	4,483
40	3,962
45	3,441
50	2,920
55	2,398
60	1,877
65	1,356
70	835
75	313

Note: These are only averages. Unfortunately, some players may pass away before they reach 78 years old. Others who are more fortunate, can have many more years left to dream.

Lottery Full Wheel Calculators Released

We are proud to announce that we have begun to roll out our new Full Wheel Payout Calculators for the following lotteries:

• Mega Millions Full Wheel Calculator
• Powerball Full Wheel Calculator
• Hot Lotto Full Wheel Calculator 

You can access these pages from the links above, from our Lottery Research Page, or the "Lottery Combo Tables" link on our Lottery Power Picks home page.

While we are still in the bug/shakeout mode, we have decided to provide these calculators to you in a phased mode.

The purpose of these pages are to help you, the lottery players, better understand how much money: it would cost you to purchase a full lottery wheel; you would win if any or all of your numbers were to appear in the associated lottery drawing; and, lastly, how much your profit or loss from that transaction was.

During the coming weeks, we will be testing these pages to make sure that everything works properly. We will also be expanding these pages to include all of our covered lotteries.

We hope this information is helpful and gives you more information about the financial risks associated with playing the large lottery games.

All Hot Numbers Picked in Last Mega Millions Drawing

As many of our readers have discovered, the winning Mega Millions lottery numbers drawn on Tuesday, December 17, 2010 were all Hot Numbers!  The winning numbers were: 11 - 20 - 26 - 46 - 53 and Megaball 12. We have provided an excerpt of these results from our Mega Millions Hot Cold Number Analysis page at left.

While this is a rare occurrence, we believe it is important for players to realize that all systems have merit.

The subset of Hot white ball numbers that we identified consisted of 14 balls; and 9 Megaballs. Limiting ourselves to the white balls only, we would have played only 2,002 combinations.

If we then wheeled each of the 9 Megaballs, we would have purchased 18,018 total combinations.

 The subset of Hot balls (white and Mega) numbers that we identified are shown at right.

The annuity jackpot prize for that drawing was $133 million, but nobody won. Had we played all 18 thousand combinations, we would have won over $135 million.

And, if we chose to play these numbers with the Megaplier, our total winnings would have increased to $141 million because the 4x megaplier was picked as well. This would have been a great return from the $36,036 we would have spent!

Win Money Playing UK Lotto's Hot Picks

Introduction

We recently discovered the UK HotPicks Lottery game. In it, a player can select combinations containing anywhere from 1 to 5 numbered balls. Depending on the balls played, the game offers players a chance to win prizes ranging from �5 to �130,000.

Since the results are based on the first 6 numbers drawn in the UK Lotto (bonus balls are not considered), we examined our UK Lottery Hot and Cold Lottery Analysis results to see if any patterns emerged. What we found was that there was an abundant amount of hot numbers that were selected in a 3-month period (26 drawings).

This led us to investigate whether a winning strategy could be identified, and we concluded that:

Hot Picks Players Could Make
�1,000 to �40,000 per year.

Accordingly, this article explains the following to give you a winning edge:

• How HotPicks is Played
• Winning Ticket Combinations
• How to Select the Balls to Play in the Wheeling Pool
• Example of Wheeling Hot Balls Potential Payout

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How HotPicks is Played

Playing HotPicks is relatively simple. As a player, you first identify if you are playing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 numbers. Then, you select the numbers that you want to play from 1 to 49 (no duplicates).

Each ticket costs �1, and the winning numbers are determined from the UK Lotto draw. If all of the numbers you choose on that playing ticket appears in the main first 6 numbers drawn, you win the associated prize.

Table 1: Prizes and Combinations

Balls	Win	Combinations  For Various Balls Played
Played	Prize	49	8	9	10	11	12
1	5	49	8	9	10	11	12
2	40	1,176	28	36	45	55	66
3	450	18,424	56	84	120	165	220
4	7,000	211,876	70	126	210	330	495
5	130,000	1,906,884	56	126	252	462	792

Table 1 above summarizes the various prizes that are paid. Column 1 indicates the amount of numbers you want to match, and Column 2 indicates the prize you will win. For example, if you wish to play 2 numbers, and they are part of the winning UK Lotto combination, you win �40. 

For reference purposes, we have also listed the total number of possible wheeling combinations that may be constructed using various balls. The combinations under the Column Header 49 indicate all the possible combintions available.

The remaining columns indicate the number of possible combinations for limited subsets of 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 balls. This is important because you have to limit your playing pool if you wish to generate a profit. We will refer to this as your Wheeling Pool which will be discussed below.

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Winning Ticket Combinations

Regardless of the size of your Wheeling Pool, whenever the number of balls that were  selected equal or exceed the number you played, you will own one or more winning HotPicks  tickets.

For example, assume you are playing a 2 ball combinations, and 4 of the selected balls are members of your Wheeling Pool, you will have then have 6 winning tickets.

Table 2: Number of Winning Tickets You Will Have

Balls	Winning Ticket Combinations For Numbers Matched
Played	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
2	0	0	1	3	6	10	15
3	0	0	0	1	4	10	20
4	0	0	0	0	1	5	15
5	0	0	0	0	0	1	6

The easiest way to determine how many tickets have won is follow these steps:

• Write Down the numbers in your Wheeling Pool
• Write Down how many of these numbers were drawn in the UK Lotto that night
• Look for the number of balls you played in the first column
• Then read across that line to find the number in the heading you matched.

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How to Select the Balls to Play in the Wheeling Pool

Since the Hot Picks results are based on the first 6 numbers drawn in the UK Lotto (bonus balls are not considered), we can easily examine the UK Lotto Hot Cold Number Analysis page to determine which subset of numbers we should play in our Wheeling Pool. Looking at the table in the top right portion of the page, we will see the White Balls listed in the "Warm + Hot" cell. These are the latest set of Hot Numbers and should be played.

By clicking on the Tab labeled "Last 26 Results", you will be able to see how these numbers performed during the past 26 weeks. The Hot Numbers will be displayed in Red and would be the numbers that you played.

Note however, that as time goes by, the balls will change. Therefore, you should always refer to this page before playing in the next Hot Picks drawing.

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Example of Wheeling Hot Balls Potential Payouts

At present, our Hot Ball Wheeling Pool contains 9 numbers. Table 3 below summarizes the Potential Earnings we would won playing these numbers for the past 3 months (26 drawings).

As shown, the vertical columns labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 indicate the number of balls we wish to play. Immediately below is the amount of money we would have spent  buying all the possible combinations.

In each horizontal row, we summarize how many times we would have matched 0 to 6 of our Hot Ball numbers. The total number of tickets equals the number of times we won times the  number of winning tickets for each drawing.

The last (bottom) row displays the profit or loss that we would have earned playing these 9 numbers.

Table 3: Example of 3 Month Potential Earnings 
(September 8 - December 4, 2010)

		Total Number of Tickets Won Past 26 Weeks
	Numbers Played	1	2	3	4	5
Combos	Bought	9	36	84	126	126
Matched	Times Won
0	6	0	0	0	0	0
1	4	4	0	0	0	0
2	11	22	11	0	0	0
3	3	9	9	3	0	0
4	2	8	12	8	2	0
5	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	0	0	0	0	0	0
26 Game	Total	43	32	11	2	0
	Unit Prize	5	40	450	7,000	130,000
26 Game	Total Won	215	1,280	4,950	14,000	0
26 Game	Total Spent	234	936	2,184	3,276	3,276
26 Game	Profit	-19	344	2,766	10,724	-3,276

As shown,  players would have won anywhere from �344, �2,766, to �10,724 if they played either 2, 3, or 4 ball combinations.  Since these results are for a three month period, it is estimated that UK Lottery Players could profit approximately �1,000, �8,000, to �42,000 annually.

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Conclusion

If you are a serious Lottery Player who is trying to earn extra income, we recommend that you seriously consider adopting the strategy described above and play the UK HotPicks game.

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Learn More

• Players' Guide to Lotto HotPicks
• Play Lotto HotPicks Game Procedures

HotPicks Analysis Delayed

Image via Wikipedia

As we were preparing our new analysis for this lottery game last night, our computer system became infected with a virus named: "Antivirus Action".  This malicious intruder has crippled our computer entirely, preventing us from accessing and running most of our programs, including the internet.

We are working with tech support representatives of our Anti Virus provider to help us restore functionality.

At present, we are unsure how long this process will take, but once everything is back to normal, we will complete and publish this important UK Lotto Hot Picks guide.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Lotto HotPicks Analysis to be Published Next Week

As part of our Lottery Wheeling Calculator development, we have been re-examining our various covered lotteries. To this extend, we discovered the UK Lotto HotPicks game which allows a player to simply select and play a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 digit combination. If their chosen numbers are present in the official UK Lotto drawing numbers, then the player wins �5, �40, �450, �7,000 or �130,000.

While this game features smaller prizes than the UK Lotto, it only costs the player  �1 per entry.

And, after reviewing our UK Lotto Hot Cold Number results, we believe that utilizing those numbers with this game could reward lottery players often with a positive cashflow.


The results of our analysis will be published on this blog by the end of next week, so remember to visit our site and learn more.