Is Mega Millions worth playing at $364M?
No. Not tonight, not by this math.
A $5 ticket buys 1.33 of expected value — 27¢ per $1 — once you do the math the billboard doesn't. Here is every step.
The advertised jackpot is a 30-year annuity — the sum of payments, not a pile of money that exists today.
The lump sum nearly every winner takes — 40% of the headline, as published by the lottery itself.
A win this size lands in the 37% federal bracket. Florida at least adds no state income tax.
At this jackpot we estimate 0.09 other winning tickets on average — your expected share if you win is 96%.
The naive version of this calculation — annuity value, no tax, no splitting — says 47.5¢. That gap is the whole story: the honest number is 1.8× smaller.
- 50¢ of value per $1: at a $3801.7M jackpot
- Break-even: never — sales (and co-winners) grow as fast as the prize does
Prize table, add-on math and recent drawings: Mega Millions → · or see tonight's full board.
One email when Mega Millions crosses a threshold worth knowing about. No noise.