The Mega Millions lottery has reached its highest-ever jackpot, at $900 million — just one recent example of how lottery jackpots continue to balloon in size.
In 2016, the Powerball jackpot hit a record $1.6 billion, which was split among three people. The Mega Millions hasn't hit that number (yet), but it's on track to do so soon.
The constant growth for the Mega Millions jackpot is due in large part to a rule change lottery officials implemented in October 2017, according to The Washington Post. The rules made massive payouts less frequent, which spurred massive growth for a select few jackpots.
The Mega Millions lottery has been around since 1996. But since the rule change last year, it's had three of its six-ever largest payouts. As this INSIDER chart shows, once a jackpot hits a certain threshold, it tends to grow exponentially in size.
The growth acceleration, lottery officials say, is driven by infrequent players.
Once the hits somewhere between $200 million and $400 million, according to Gordon Medenica, Maryland’s lottery and gaming director, infrequent lottery players start paying attention. At that point, states sometimes don't even bother to advertise the games anymore, he told The Washington Post.
This graph, for example, shows the Mega Millions jackpot compared to the number of tickets sold since the October 2017 rules change. There are a bunch of relatively small jackpots clustered with relatively few tickets sold. But once the jackpots start getting big, people start buying way more tickets, pushing the jackpot numbers ever higher. And if there's no winner, the jackpots roll over to the next lottery and just get bigger.
So does that mean it's worth getting a ticket? Maybe not. With numbers like this, the odds of winning are still extraordinarily low, and there's a high likelihood you'll have to split the prize if you do win. You'll also have to deal with a massive tax on your winnings.
Nonetheless, lottery officials depend on huge jackpot numbers to get more people to enter the lottery. And their strategy — so far — is working.
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