The Mega Millions payout chart in one sentence: a $5 play has nine ways to win, the jackpot comes up 1 in 290,472,336 and any prize 1 in 23.07, and every prize below the jackpot is scaled by a multiplier printed on the ticket.
| Match | Odds (1 in) | 2x | 3x | 4x | 5x | 10x |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 + Mega Ball | 290,472,336 | Jackpot | Jackpot | Jackpot | Jackpot | Jackpot |
| 5 | 12,629,232 | $2,000,000 | $3,000,000 | $4,000,000 | $5,000,000 | $10,000,000 |
| 4 + Mega Ball | 893,761 | $20,000 | $30,000 | $40,000 | $50,000 | $100,000 |
| 4 | 38,859 | $1,000 | $1,500 | $2,000 | $2,500 | $5,000 |
| 3 + Mega Ball | 13,965 | $400 | $600 | $800 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| 3 | 607 | $20 | $30 | $40 | $50 | $100 |
| 2 + Mega Ball | 665 | $20 | $30 | $40 | $50 | $100 |
| 1 + Mega Ball | 86 | $14 | $21 | $28 | $35 | $70 |
| Mega Ball only | 35 | $10 | $15 | $20 | $25 | $50 |
The current $5 game
The current game started with the draw of 8 April 2025. The old $2 game’s last draw was 4 April 2025. The ticket went to $5 and the multiplier became part of every play, from 2x to 10x. As a result, no prize is below $10, and the largest fixed prize, Match 5 at 10x, is $10,000,000.
Each draw takes 5 white balls from 1 to 70 and one Mega Ball from 1 to 24. Draws are on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time. California pays prizes pari-mutuel, so the fixed amounts in the chart do not hold there, and California is left out of every figure below.
How the odds of winning Mega Millions are worked out
There are 12,103,014 ways to choose 5 white balls from 70. Each of those can be paired with any of 24 Mega Balls, which gives 290,472,336 possible plays, all equally likely. The jackpot is exactly one of them.
Every other tier is counted the same way. Take Match 5 without the Mega Ball. The winning set of five white balls pairs with any of the 23 Mega Balls that were not drawn, so 23 plays win that tier: 1 in 12,629,232. Lower tiers have far more winning plays, from 325 for 4 + Mega Ball up to 8,259,888 for the Mega Ball alone. Our computed odds match the official chart on all nine tiers.
Add the nine tiers together and the chance of any prize is 4.33%, or 1 in 23.07. The other 95.67% of plays win nothing. Most of the winning plays come from the Mega Ball alone, at 1 in 35.17.
The multiplier
| Multiplier | Published odds | Out of 32 plays |
|---|---|---|
| 2x | 1 in 2.13 | 15 in 32 |
| 3x | 1 in 3.2 | 10 in 32 |
| 4x | 1 in 8 | 4 in 32 |
| 5x | 1 in 16 | 2 in 32 |
| 10x | 1 in 32 | 1 in 32 |
The published odds for 3x, 4x, 5x and 10x are exact 32nds: 10, 4, 2 and 1 in 32. The 2x multiplier takes the remaining 15 in 32, which the official chart prints as 1 in 2.13.
Weighting each multiplier by its chance gives an average of 3.0. That average is the one used in the expected-value figures below. It does not change the odds of any tier. It only scales what a winning play pays.
What a $5 play returns
| Step | Per $5 play |
|---|---|
| All non-jackpot prizes at the average multiplier, each prize times its chance | $1.12 |
| Jackpot share at the $505 million annuity | $1.74 |
| Jackpot share at the $213.3 million cash value | $0.73 |
| Expected return, cash option, before tax | $1.85 |
| Expected return, cash option, after 24% federal withholding on prizes of $5,000 or more | $1.61 |
| Average loss per play, cash option, after withholding | $3.39 |
The table is for the Friday 6 November 2026 draw. Its advertised jackpot is $505 million, with a cash value of $213.3 million, both read from megamillions.com at 02:22 UTC on 5 November 2026. The advertised figure is the annuity: one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments, each 5% bigger. The cash option is a single payment, here 42.2% of the advertised figure. We count expected value on cash because it is the jackpot’s worth paid today. The annuity version is in the table at $2.86.
The prizes below the jackpot return $1.12 of the $5, or 22.4%, at any jackpot size. At this draw the jackpot adds $0.73 at cash, for a total of $1.85 per play, a 37.1% return and a loss of $3.15. This figure assumes one jackpot winner and the average multiplier. A shared jackpot lowers it.
Tax takes more. The IRS withholds 24% on lottery winnings of $5,000 or more. After that federal withholding, a play returns $1.61, or 32.2%, a loss of $3.39. State tax is not counted.
The break point is a cash jackpot of $1,127.5 million. That is where a play’s pre-tax expected value reaches $5, assuming one winner. After withholding, the break point is $1,508.8 million. For scale, the largest jackpot on the official list, $1.602 billion on 8 August 2023, had a cash value of $794.2 million.
Mega Millions says 50% of its sales are paid back as prizes. That rate covers all players across all draws, and it measures something different from the return on a single play at a given jackpot.
Mega Millions jackpot history since the $5 game
| Draw | Jackpot (annuity) | Cash value |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Apr 2025 | $112 million | $49.3 million |
| 27 Jun 2025 | $348 million | $155.5 million |
| 14 Nov 2025 | $983 million | $453.6 million |
| 2 Dec 2025 | $90 million | $42.0 million |
| 10 Mar 2026 | $536 million | $245.6 million |
| 17 Mar 2026 | $60 million | $27.1 million |
| 28 Jul 2026 | $803 million | $345.5 million |
Seven jackpots have been won since 8 April 2025. The largest was $983 million on 14 November 2025, with a cash value of $453.6 million. Seven wins is too few to describe how often the jackpot is hit. The odds above describe that.
The last draw read was on Tuesday 3 November 2026: 4 24 31 62 70, Mega Ball 3. No play won the $482 million jackpot, and Friday’s advertised jackpot is $505 million. The record remains $1.602 billion from 8 August 2023, won under the old $2 game.
Most common Mega Millions numbers
| Times drawn | White balls |
|---|---|
| 19 | 40, 49 |
| 18 | 42 |
| 17 | 10, 17, 18, 63 |
| 8 | 1, 3, 8, 9, 32, 35, 44, 45, 46, 53, 54, 61, 65, 69 |
| 7 | 20, 23, 67 |
| 6 | 28, 29 |
| Mega Ball | Times drawn | Mega Ball | Times drawn |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | 13 | 3 |
| 2 | 8 | 14 | 6 |
| 3 | 8 | 15 | 2 |
| 4 | 6 | 16 | 11 |
| 5 | 6 | 17 | 9 |
| 6 | 7 | 18 | 5 |
| 7 | 9 | 19 | 5 |
| 8 | 7 | 20 | 4 |
| 9 | 6 | 21 | 5 |
| 10 | 8 | 22 | 6 |
| 11 | 4 | 23 | 7 |
| 12 | 13 | 24 | 11 |
The counts cover 165 draws, from 8 April 2025 to 3 November 2026. At that sample, a fair draw would show each white ball about 11.79 times and each Mega Ball about 6.88 times. The white counts run from 19 (40 and 49) down to 6 (28 and 29). Mega Ball 12 came up 13 times and Mega Ball 15 came up 2 times. All 70 white-ball counts and all 24 Mega Ball counts match Washington’s Lottery frequency page.
A sample of 165 draws is short, and gaps like these are what a short sample produces. The chi-square test measures how far the counts sit from an even spread. The white balls score 67.5 on 69 degrees of freedom, p = 0.53, and the Mega Balls score 23.1 on 23, p = 0.46. A p-value this high means the spread of counts is what a fair draw produces by chance. There is no evidence of favoured numbers, and past counts do not change the next draw’s odds, which stay at 1 in 290,472,336 for the jackpot.
At Friday’s jackpot a $5 play returns $1.85 on average, so set a limit before you buy, and read our guide to responsible gambling.
*Sources: megamillions.com How to Play, FAQs, Jackpot History and its draw-data service, read 02:21 to 02:22 UTC on 5 November 2026; New York State open data, Lottery Mega Millions Winning Numbers (dataset 5xaw-6ayf), read 02:22 UTC on 5 November 2026, cross-checked against Washington’s Lottery number frequency page, read 02:23 UTC on 5 November 2026; IRS Instructions for Forms W-2G and 5754.*