WORCESTER, Mass. – The Mega Millions jackpot has risen to $1.1 billion ahead of Tuesday evening’s drawing. This is the second time in the past year the game’s grand prize has eclipsed $1 billion.
The huge jackpots are becoming somewhat of a trend. Holy Cross economics professor Victor Matheson said, including this week’s, there have been several jackpots exceeding $1 billion over the past five years. He said this is an intentional design by the Multi-State Lottery Association, the nonprofit which coordinates the Mega Millions.
Matheson said while it’s harder to win as the prizes get bigger, the large jackpots generate excitement among buyers. That excitement then generates large sales of tickets, of which the lottery is trying to sell as many as possible.
“They love it when there is a billion dollar lottery,” Matheson said. “Because what this means is the number of ticket sales during this drawing is roughly 20 times the number of tickets they sell during a normal drawing when the jackpot is a more normal number down in the 10s or 20s of millions.”
Matheson said it’s also harder to win the lottery now because the lottery association has added more numbers into the pool, which makes it harder to guess the right combination.
