Mega Millions ticket price increase: What does this mean?

NEW YORK - The cost of buying a Mega Millions jackpot dream will soon more than double.

Mega Millions ticket cost

Lottery officials announced it will cost $5 to play Mega Millions, beginning in April, up from the current $2 per ticket. The price increase will be one of many changes to Mega Millions that officials said will result in improved jackpot odds, more frequent giant prizes and even larger payouts.

Powerball officials said they have no plans to change that game's odds or the $2 price for most tickets.

Mega Millions' hope is that by increasing ticket revenue and rejiggering the odds to something less stratospheric, more people will win jackpots even as prizes grow extraordinarily high, which attracts more players. The goal is to increase revenue and provide more money to state lotteries, which in turn spend it on a variety of government services.

Mega Millions price increase

Mega Millions will introduce changes at a time when fewer people are buying tickets and jackpots need to reach ever-higher figures before sporadic players notice and opt to buy a ticket or two. Whereas a $500 million jackpot once prompted lines out convenience store doors, top prizes of $1 billion now often draw more of a ho-hum response.

Those much-hyped jackpot numbers also could take a hit as interest rates fall. That's because on billboards or other advertisements, state lotteries emphasize the annuity payout for jackpots, distributed over decades from an investment fund. As interest rates have been high, the annuity jackpots have more than doubled the cash prizes that winners nearly always choose.

With an expectation that interest rates will drop, those annuity jackpot figures will decline, so the advertised jackpot won't seem quite so massive.

What are the odds of winning the jackpot?

The odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot, no matter the size, stand at about 1 in 302.6 million.

There’s a long list of rare events that are more likely than winning the Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot – you have more of a chance of becoming the president of the United States.

A common comparison is the odds of getting struck by lightning once in your lifetime, which stand at about one in 15,300.

SCOTT McFETRIDGE, with the Associated Press, helped contribute to this report.