There comes a moment in every long jackpot run when the top prize suddenly starts growing much faster - a tipping point when casual players begin to take an interest, regulars buy more tickets than usual and the curve of the graph becomes much steeper. But when does this happen, is it taking longer than before to reach the tipping point, and should you adapt your playing habits in any way?
Powerball and Mega Millions have historically offered the biggest jackpots anywhere in the world, let alone the U.S. It started back in the last century, although the jackpots were comparatively very low by today’s standards. When Powerball first passed $100 million in July 1993, it sparked what was described by the New York Times as an unprecedented ‘lottery frenzy’.
So, why is it that a similar jackpot nowadays would barely raise an eyebrow, even though there is still a huge appetite for lottery games and a $100 million win would still be life-changing? It is because there have now been hundreds of nine-figure jackpots – they have become so commonplace that they are no longer new or exciting.
While jackpots have gradually become larger and larger over the last couple of decades, the tipping point has gone upwards. One dramatic example was the first $1 billion jackpot in early 2016. It came in Powerball and triggered an explosion of interest on a scale that may never be repeated. Fuelled by widespread media publicity, the top prize went from $524 million in one draw to $949 million in the next, before leaping up again to $1.58 billion in the next draw when it was won by three ticket holders. That’s a jump of more than $1 billion in the space of two draws. On an extraordinary night, there were more than 26 million prizes paid out in total.
The next milestone for one of the games to break through was the $2 billion barrier. Again, it came in Powerball, when the jackpot hit the following values on the way to setting a new record - $822 million, $999 million, $1.247 billion, $1.656 billion and finally $2.040 billion. This momentous event happened in November 2022, showing what could still happen when a never-before-seen jackpot gets put up for grabs.
Since 2022, there has been a steady frequency of a couple of billion-dollar jackpots per year, without the spectacular draw-by-draw increases that had characterised some previous wins. Tipping points are still happening when jackpots reach a certain value, but why aren’t they as jaw-dropping as they used to be?
One factor is undoubtedly jackpot fatigue. When jackpots keep reaching $500 million or more every couple of months, they don’t grab the attention in the same way. Powerball hits the half-a-billion-dollar mark so regularly that it takes something even more special to attract the attention of the media or the wider public.
Mega Millions, meanwhile, seems tangled up in a loop of lower participation and slower jackpot growth since the format of the game was updated in April 2025. Many of the changes may have seemed positive - a bigger starting jackpot, improved odds of winning and a built-in multiplier to boost lower payouts – but the decision to raise the cost of a ticket from $2 to $5 has not had the desired effect.
Mega Millions bosses had hoped that the ticket increase would lead to the jackpot climbing more rapidly. While the overall number of sales was always likely to dip, the extra revenue from a $5 ticket was expected to more than offset this downturn and more money would generally go towards topping up the jackpot in each draw.
The theory may have been sensible – and apparently based on extensive modelling of possible player behaviour – but the reality has been that the jackpot has built up slower than before. Lottery fans see that it’s not growing quickly and they are less inclined to play, so the slow speed continues. It is the opposite impact to what Mega Millions bosses wanted – where a skyrocketing jackpot pushes up ticket sales and this inflates the top prize even further.
Another problem for Mega Millions is that it does not compare favorably with Powerball since the price increase. If you’ve got two similar games to play – one costs $2 and one $5 – which one would you pick? Powerball also has an extra draw per week to help propel the jackpot, so Mega Millions can only really compete when it is significantly higher.
The tipping point for both lotteries now seems to be much closer to $1 billion. It is only at this value that the curve of the graph becomes sharper. Recent statistics have shown that Americans are roughly 15 times more likely to buy a ticket when a jackpot nears $1 billion compared to when it resets to its starting baseline.
Both games nevertheless still have the capability to create more ‘lotto mania’ in the future. For Powerball, there are now more potential players than ever before after it expanded to the United Kingdom in the summer of 2026. The UK version of the game works a bit differently, but they still contribute towards the shared jackpot. The UK has a population of around 70 million and has never had a billion-dollar (or billion-pound) jackpot to play for. The country’s arrival in Powerball has already had a positive effect on jackpot growth – imagine what a 10-figure prize would do!
For Mega Millions, bosses will be hoping that their gamble on the ticket price eventually pays off if they play the long game. If there is ever a scenario where Mega Millions reaches around $600 million or more and Powerball resets to $20 million at the same time, it would leave Mega Millions as the far more attractive option for big jackpot hunters. At $5 per line, the top prize could soar at an exceptional rate.
Once the jackpot approaches or surpasses $1 billion, it breaks into mainstream news coverage and trends heavily on social media. The widespread publicity sparks a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out). Even casual players who normally have no interest in the lottery suddenly flock to gas stations, grocery stores, and online apps to buy tickets.
So, if the point of mass lottery excitement is in the region of $800 million to $1 billion, should you alter the way you play accordingly? The simple answer would be no. The odds of winning don’t change as the jackpots get bigger or more people play. If there’s a game you want to play, go ahead and buy a ticket.
One factor to keep in mind is that when ticket sales go berserk, it becomes far more likely that someone will win the jackpot and it will soon drop down again. For example, going back to the $1.58 billion jackpot in January 2016, it was estimated that 371 million tickets were sold for the winning draw. Given that there are only 292 million possible combinations (and accounting for the fact that some players would have picked identical numbers), there was clearly a very high chance that at least one ticket was going to match all the numbers.
If you wait until ticket sales explode, it may therefore mean that you only get one or two draws to try and win the jackpot for yourself. That’s absolutely fine if you’re a casual player, but perhaps it may be wiser to jump on board before the ‘hype train’ sets off. Remember that a jackpot of $500 million or $600 million would probably make just as much of a difference to your life as a $1 billion payout. In fact, wouldn’t a $20 million jackpot do that for most winners?
Perhaps Powerball and Mega Millions are just destined to be those types of games that exist in the background with their core fanbase and only really emerge into the spotlight from time to time when a jackpot hits $1 billion. Lottery games are evolving all the time, with an ever-increasing number of in-state draws, scratchers and digital options, so the multi-state giants may have to be content with their place in the order of the lottery world.
Keep an eye on the progress of both jackpots to make sure you know when you want to play. It promises to be as thrilling as ever whenever we see $1 billion on offer and it could ramp up even more if new records are set in the future.
