Big Changes For Idaho’s Mega Millions Lottery Game

Beginning this Saturday, (10/28) The Idaho Lottery's Mega Millions Lottery game will be more expensive to play and harder to win. The good news is that you could potentially win a bigger jackpot!

The new Mega Millions structure will help build bigger jackpots faster with the hope that we will soon get to see a jackpot of over 1 billion dollars.

According to a story appearing in USA Today, these are the five changes happening to the Mega Millions game starting this Saturday:

1. Higher ticket prices.The price of a ticket doubles from $1 to $2.
2. Bigger starting jackpots. Instead of the Mega Millions' grand prize starting at 15 million as it currently does all Mega Millions jackpots will now start at 40 million, so that will be the minimum you will win.
3. Longer odds. The new game design decreases the number of white balls from 75 but increases the number of red balls by 10, so the odds of winning the jackpot increase from around 1 in 260 million to 1 in around 300 million. What that basically means is that your chance of winning anything goes from 1 in 15 to 1 in 24.
4. Better chances to win a million dollars. According to the New York Gaming Commission you now will have a 1 in 12.6 million chance of winning at least 1 million dollars instead of the current 1 in 18.5 million chance.
5. New option to play and win. In seven states, a player will also be able to wager $3 for two entries to win the game's jackpot. The tickets will not be eligible for any other prize level, and players won't be able to customize their numbers.

Mega Millions Prize drawings happen every Tuesday and Friday at 9 p.m. MST.

I can’t believe the game can be harder to win, because I find it impossible already. The most I’ve EVER won on Mega Millions or Power Ball is three freaking dollars. But with that being said, I subscribe to the philosophy of you can’t win unless you play, so I will be one of the millions handing over my $2 every week for a chance at becoming a multi-millionaire. I'd appreciate it if the rest of you would all refuse to play, in protest, so my own personal odds of winning increase.