Massachusetts Megabucks Jackpot Hits a New Record
Thursday July 2nd 2026The Massachusetts Megabucks jackpot for the July 4 draw will be the biggest the game has ever seen- fitting for a draw falling on a beloved national holiday! Here's the latest…
Previous Record Comfortably Cleared
On June 23, the MA Lottery reported that the Wednesday, June 24 jackpot would be the second-biggest Megabucks jackpot of all time, at $21,150,000. Well, two more draws have passed with no winners since then, and as a result, the projected jackpot for the draw on Saturday, July 4, is now the biggest Megabucks jackpot of all time!
The jackpot for the next draw is estimated at $22.25 million, well above the previous record of $21,714,520. This prize was won all the way back in October 1985 and, at the time, was the third biggest lottery jackpot in US history. Impressive! The prize was divided among eight winning tickets, resulting in a less-impressive but still life-changing $2.7 million per winner. For reference, the most money won by a single player in Megabucks was $16.35 million, won more recently in September 2022.
Odds of Winning
The odds of winning the MA Megabucks jackpot are 1 in 7,059,052. By comparison, Lotto America, a multi-state lottery which offers jackpots in a similar range – often far lower, in fact – has jackpot odds of 1 in 25,989,600. That's almost four times worse than the Megabucks jackpot odds. It just goes to show how rare this occurrence is!
Lottery Maths: Will the jackpot be won next draw?
Although there's no way to tell how many tickets are entered in each Megabucks draw, we can make an estimate using the number of winning tickets for a given draw. Some draw days are more popular than others, and big jackpots attract way more attention, so we're just going to take the last draw as our benchmark.
The Megabucks lottery has overall prize odds of 1 in 39.3, so for every 1 winning ticket sold, there are 38.3 losers. A tough game! The July 1 draw saw 4,805 prizes won – multiplying that number by 38.3 gives us a decent estimate of the number of losing tickets: 184,031 – add the two, and our estimate for the total tickets played in the last draw is 188,836.
To work out the probability that at least one ticket hits the jackpot, we can divide the jackpot odds by the number of tickets sold. As mentioned, the jackpot odds are 1 in 7,059,052 - dividing by the number of entries, 188,836, gives us a 1 in 37.4 chance that one or more tickets hits the big time.
Of course, with it being a record-breaking jackpot on a national holiday, we'd expect many more tickets to be entered than the last draw, making the odds that at least one ticket wins the jackpot much higher. All we can really do is wait and see!
Getting Involved
If you're a Massachusetts resident and you fancy your chances at landing the biggest Megabucks jackpot ever, all you need to do is purchase a $2 ticket. Who knows, you might end up celebrating the 4th of July for a new reason from this year forward, and doing so in style!
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