Actually, at a certain point, your EV can be positive – namely, in our example when the jackpot is higher than $605 million. If the jackpot were at $200 million, the EV would be double.Īs you can see, your mathematical EV is higher when the jackpot is larger. The expected value or EV would then be 100 million divided by 302,6 million multiplied by $2, which is $0,66 – roughly a third of what you pay for your ticket. The ticket price is $2, the odds are 1 in 302,6 million, and the jackpot size is $100 million. So let’s just focus on the main prize here. Normally you would have to take all the smaller prizes into account here as well, but then the calculus would become very complicated. Now let’s calculate the expected value for a Mega Millions jackpot with an amount of $100 million.

Factor #3 is the amount you can win if you do have all the numbers right.

Factor #2 is the price you have to pay for the ticket.

Factor #1 is the odds – for example, the odds of having all numbers required to win the Mega Millions jackpot on your ticket are 1 in 302,6 million.

If there is a set probability for the outcome of an event (or a combination of events), then you can calculate the expected value. It is defined as the amount you can expect to win back when you look at gamble money. In mathematics, there is a term called expected value. Then you can decide which lottery you want to participate in. You can scroll through the list of jackpots very easily. Here, we list the various jackpots, ordered by size. Just take a look at the top area of our site. On our site, you can easily check the current jackpot amounts for Powerball, Mega Millions and a number of other lotteries from across the globe.

Assuming that the price for a lottery ticket is the same, a bigger jackpot means a better value for your money.

The size of the respective jackpot should play an important role when you decide whether to buy a lottery ticket or not.

Powerball and mega current jackpot