Current jackpots
The three national lottery games, compared
Two multi-state jackpot games dominate the United States — Powerball and Mega Millions — alongside the smaller, better-odds Lotto America. All three are run across dozens of states at once, so their jackpots climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars (and occasionally past a billion) because tens of millions of tickets are sold nationwide for a single drawing.
| Game | Numbers | Draw days | Ticket | Jackpot odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Powerball | 5 of 69 + 1 of 26 | Mon, Wed, Sat | $2 | 1 in 292,201,338 |
| Mega Millions | 5 of 70 + 1 of 24 | Tue, Fri | $5 | 1 in 290,472,336 |
| Lotto America | 5 of 52 + 1 of 10 | Mon, Wed, Sat | $1 | 1 in 25,989,600 |
Lotto America's top prize is far smaller, but its jackpot odds are more than eleven times better than Powerball's or Mega Millions', and its ticket costs half as much — which is why, dollar for dollar, it often returns the most expected value of the three.
How we rank them by expected value
The cards above are ordered by expected value per dollar: for each game we add up every prize tier multiplied by its probability, apply an assumed tax haircut, and divide by the ticket price — giving how many cents a $1 ticket is really worth. Every game lands well below a dollar (the lottery is a negative-expected-value bet by design), but the gap between them is real, and it swings with the size of the jackpot: the bigger the advertised prize, the more value each ticket carries — until the rising risk of splitting that jackpot with another winner starts to eat the gain back.
Dig deeper with the break-even calculator (how big a jackpot must get before a ticket is a fair bet), the split-risk tracker (how likely a jackpot is to be shared), and our guides on expected value, how the odds work and the Power Play & Megaplier add-ons.
Expected value sums the advertised cash-option jackpot and every fixed lower-tier prize, each divided by its odds, after an assumed 63% post-tax take. Mega Millions figures include its always-on 2×–10× multiplier (~3× on average). For entertainment and comparison only — not financial advice.