Who wants to be a millionaire? Not enough lottery ticket buyers.
Mega Millions is raising ticket prices next year from $2 to $5 to boost more jackpots well over the $1 billion mark.
People play the lottery for the fleeting fantasy of instant riches, the American daydream. These days it takes more zeros to deliver that rush: What’s it like to be Bezos? Buffett? A billionaire?
A billion dollars has become the new benchmark of life-changing wealth in the popular imagination, lottery officials say. People buy more tickets when billions are involved—and they are betting people are also willing to pay more per ticket.
“It’s really fun to dream about something like that,” said Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. The bigger jackpots should help Mega Millions differentiate itself from Powerball, the other big multistate lottery, and from other forms of betting.
Billions and billions
Ticket sales rise significantly when jackpots close in on $1 billion, sales data shows. But the novelty has worn off somewhat.
The first time the Mega Millions jackpot hit $1 billion in 2018, people bought more than $739.4 million in tickets, according to sales data from Lotto Report. When it happened again in 2023, half as many tickets were sold.
“Think of it as a drug. You need bigger and bigger doses of the drug to get the same high as we become accustomed to larger and larger jackpots,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., who has studied lotteries.
Disclaimer
The information contained in South Florida Reporter is for general information purposes only.
The South Florida Reporter assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents of the Service.
In no event shall the South Florida Reporter be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents of the Service at any time without prior notice.
The Company does not warrant that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components
