Mega Millions Ticket Cost More Than Doubling In New Version Of Game

CONNECTICUT — Lottery Players will have to ante up a little more to play the Mega Millions game come springtime.

The cost of a ticket is going up from the current $2 to $5. It's part of a Monday announcement by Mega Millions officials that an "overhaul with plans to be bigger and better than ever when the new and improved game launches in April 2025."

Among the enhancements announced are:

• Improved odds to win the jackpot
• Bigger jackpots more frequently
• Larger starting jackpots
• Faster growing jackpots
• A built-in multiplier on every play, automatically improving every non-jackpot win by two times, three times, four times, five times and 10 times — up to $10 million for matching the five white balls
• No break-even prizes, meaning when a player wins, they’ll always win more than the cost of the ticket

"We are creating a game that both our existing players and people new to Mega Millions will love and get excited about playing," said Joshua Johnston, the lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. "We expect more billion-dollar jackpots than ever before, meaning creating more billionaires and many more millionaires as the jackpots climb, plus this game will continue the important legacy of supporting great causes everywhere Mega Millions is played.”

When the "new and improved game" launches next April, tickets will cost $5 per play and that increase represents the game's second price adjustment since the first ticket was sold more than 20 years ago and the first change since the current game matrix was adopted in 2017, according to game officials.

Since Mega Millions launched in 2002, it has produced six winners of billion-dollar jackpots, game officials said. Since the last change in 2017, more than 1,200 players have become millionaires, an average of three millionaires per week, officials said.

Mega Millions is a national game with tickets sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, GA.