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, Th, March 29, 2022, shows the drawing date of Friday, March thirty, 2022. With the Mega Millions jackpot over $500 million, Illinois picked the correct calendar week to become the showtime country in the nation to sell lottery tickets online, and other states are watching closely to see how information technology plays out. They're also wondering if the payoff volition prompt Illinois to take the side by side large stride: launching online poker, blackjack and other casino games.(AP Photo/Charles Male monarch Arbogast)

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The Mega Millions jackpot is at a world tape $640 million. Just earlier you starting time thinking nigh what yous're going to do with all of that cash - there are some basic things everyone with a ticket needs to know, especially if yous're lucky enough to be property the winning numbers.

When are the drawings held?

The Mega Millions cartoon will be held Friday from Atlanta at 11:00 p.g. Eastern Time, 10:00 p.m. Central Time, 8:00 p.thou. Pacific Time.

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

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

Where tin can I play Mega Millions?

You can purchase Mega Millions tickets from lottery retailers/agents in 42 states plus the District of Columbia and the U. S. Virgin Islands; a total of 44 jurisdictions. The eight states that practise 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 yous buy, the amend your chances of winning. Then, if you lot buy 10 tickets filled out 10 dissimilar ways, your odds of winning the jackpot 10 in 176 million.

Mike Catalano, chairman of the mathematics department at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D., said he covers the odds of winning in lottery games with his students to evidence them just how unlikely information technology is to win big.

You are nigh 50 times more likely to get struck by lightning than winning the lottery, based on the 90 people a year getting struck by lightning. Based on other U.S. averages, you're about 8,000 times more likely to be murdered than to win the lottery, and virtually 20,000 times more likely to die in a motorcar crash than hit the lucky numbers, Catalano said.

What could I exercise with all of that coin?

Bold the jackpot were $540 million, that ways for one winner the lump sum would be $389 million, and the terminal guess after state and federal taxes is around $253 1000000.

To put $253 million into context, yous could:

-- pay off i/ten,000 of the U.S. debt;

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

-- purchase 281 million Twinkies;

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

-- start a company and pay 10 employees $100,000 for 253 years;

-- buy Michael Jackson's estate [$23.9 Million], Britney Spears' mansion [$ii.nine million], Madonna's Beverly Hills mansion [$28 million], Jerry Seinfeld'due south Colorado estate [$18 million] and Michael Jordan's Chicago-area estate [$29 one thousand thousand] AND STILL take $150 meg remaining.

every day

:

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

-- to burn through information technology in 80 years, you'd demand to spend $8,658 per twenty-four hour period

If you win - should you accept an annuity or lump sum?

Bottom line: Become a financial adviser, accountant and lawyer.

Mega Millions does non have the verbal number of lottery winners that accept taken a lump sum versus annuity payments, but a spokesperson for Mega Millions says well-nigh take the cash in a lump sum.

According to Mega Millions, a jackpot winner can cull the annuity option of annual payments over a 26-year-menstruum or just a lump sum of cash.

Did you know? If you were in a high-yield savings account, yielding 0.8%, you'd stop the year with $255,038,930. That'due south more than $2 million in interest even with the electric current extremely depression interest rates.

What happens if there are multiple winners?

With a jackpot this large, experts say, at that place also is a greater chance of multiple winners. If you lot accept to share the jackpot with even 1 other winner, you've lost $30 million.

What fuels lottery mania?

Information technology's hope.

A 2008 study from Journal of Risk and Dubiety explained that households earning nether $thirteen,000 per year spend about ix per centum of their income on lottery tickets on average, or around $645 a year.

But for some, the chance — nevertheless small — 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'due south why David Kramer, a lawyer in Lincoln, bought a Mega Millions ticket Th.

"To me, the value of the lottery ticket isn't the realistic opportunity to win," he said. "It's the fact that for iii days, the heedless time nigh what I would do if I won is nifty amusement and, frankly, a very squeamish release from a normal day."

Some final words of wisdom...

Lottery officials are happy to have Friday'southward tape Mega Millions jackpot fueling ticket sales, just even they caution against spending big amounts of money per person in the hopes of striking it rich.

"We certainly know we get more than pool 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 but tell them that the odds of a lottery game get in a game of fate. Just buy a ticket, sit back and encounter if fate points a finger at you for that 24-hour interval."

Contains material from The Associated Press.

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