Lottery players across the world rejoiced at the opportunity to play the biggest international lottery games by simply connecting to the Internet. At least most lottery players did. As for enthusiasts living in the USA, the matter of online lotto and gambling in general has gotten a bit more complex than expected.
However, they are still able to access their US-based lottery games MegaMillions and Powerball. In fact, these are the games that the whole world has been hoping for, so there is no reason they shouldn’t choose one of them instead. This is the ultimate question, which one is better?
Rules & Regulations
Both the Powerball and the MegaMillions lotto game are based on the same principle. The official rules demand players of both games to guess 5 standard numbers and one extra. In Powerball, the 5 numbers range from 1 to 69 and the extra number 1-26, whereas MegaMillions players choose 5 out of 75 numbers and a Mega Ball number out of 16.
Apart from the jackpot, these two games have an equal portion of nine prize tiers depending on how many numbers you managed to guess. So since they are played more or less in the same manner, you would expect to have the same chance at winning them both.
Chances of Winning – In General & the Jackpot
When it comes to wining a prize at either one of these games, MegaMillions does have a slight advantage over Powerball. The odds of hitting the Mega jackpot are 1 in 258,890,850. On the other hand, Powerball’s jackpot is just a bit further out of reach, with a 1 in 292,201,338 chance of getting it.
If you are aimed at any prize from the nine tiers however, MegaMillions asks you to beat the odds of 1 in 15, while Powerball is much more risky as it gives you a 1 in 24.87 chance.
Price of the Tickets
In order to win, you need to pay the price first. Luckily, this is the best thing about the game of lotto. It gives you a chance to win astonishing amounts of cash for the price of $5. That is actually how much it costs to purchase a single ticket from either one of these lotteries. Additionally, they both offer the Multiplier option which applies for all prizes except for the jackpot and allows you to win several times the amount of your original prize. It is also priced identically, at $1.50.
The Biggest Jackpot
No matter what lottery players say, they are always hoping to win the jackpot. What is interesting about these two games is that they are constantly trying to take the lead and break the record of the biggest jackpot awarded to their players.
The current leader is Powerball’s jackpot with a massive amount of $1,6 billion. It managed to gain first position back in January 2016. Up until then, MegaMillions held the throne for four years with a jackpot worth of $656 million. After these numbers, no one can choose one game and not the other.
