News writer; Opinion columnist
In an era where Americans are more conscious than ever of every dollar they spend, the Mega Millions Consortium (MMC), the organization that runs the Mega Millions lottery game, had an idea: let's make our game more expensive.
In April 2025, the MMC increased the price of a Mega Millions ticket from $2 to $5. While that’s a significant jump, it also increased the odds of winning and added millions more in secondary prizes. The MMC argued that the price increase was fair because the new game offered players greater value.
It appears that the players disagreed.
While it's only been half a year since prices went up, recent sales data suggest the MMC’s big gamble may be a big bust.
The $5 gamble — and the disappointing results
When Mega Millions was first introduced in 2002, the game cost $1, and that price stayed the same for 15 years before it doubled to $2 in 2017. Despite the increase, players were willing to pay the extra dollar, and sales remained strong.
After seven years at $2, the MMC again announced it was raising the price to $5, a 150% increase. In the initial announcement, the MMC presented the change as a product upgrade. Essentially, the price was going up, but so was the ticket's value.
Enhanced features included a random multiplier for every ticket, which can make non-jackpot prizes worth up to ten times their original value. The minimum prize also increased from $2 to $10, eliminating break-even tickets and ensuring every winner received more than they paid, and the top secondary prize increased from $1 million to $10 million.
Additionally, the odds of winning the jackpot improved from 1:302 million to 1:292 million, and the starting jackpot increased from $20 million to $50 million.
Part of the rationale driving the higher ticket price was that it would create bigger jackpots faster, and players love to chase massive nine- and ten-figure prizes. The MMC director Joshua Johnston told reporters:
Sales really start to ramp up around [jackpots of] $700 million, $800 million, and they really go wild when they hit a billion dollars, so obviously there’s an appetite out there for those eye-popping jackpots.
Sales slump
Johnston told reporters that he expected total sales revenue for Mega Millions to increase by 25% once the new prices kicked in. That meant Mega Millions could sell 50% fewer tickets and still collect more in sales revenue at the higher price.
What really happened was that Mega Millions sales collapsed and never came close to reaching the MMC’s sales goals. Analysts estimate total sales revenue fell by 25% to 28%, and some state-by-state numbers were dire.
New York is one of Mega Millions' highest-value markets, and total ticket sales there fell by two-thirds after the price hike took effect. Sales revenue also fell sharply in other major markets, down 23% in Massachusetts and 22% in New Jersey. Florida reported that year-over-year Mega Millions sales fell by $72.9 million.
In an earnings call, Massimiliano Chiara, the CFO of Brightstar, a lottery technology company that works closely with the MMC, said simply:
It's very clear at this point, consumers don't appreciate the value proposition of the $5 price point.
Experts also point out a vicious cycle driven by lower sales. As Johnson mentioned, higher jackpots sell more tickets, but as sales decline, jackpots grow more slowly, and players lose the incentive to chase massive prizes.
Misunderstanding their customers
So why didn’t the new Mega Millions meet its sales projections? It’s difficult to give a definitive answer at this point, but we can point to a few factors that we think likely contributed to the game’s decline.
One of the new game’s biggest selling points was the increased value of the secondary prizes. In the first month of sales, Mega Millions reported paying out $51.3 million in secondary prizes, which, under the old game, would have been worth only $12.5 million.
However, players may either not be doing the math or not care.
The biggest reason most people play Mega Millions is that it offers some of the biggest lottery jackpots in the world. It’s one of the only games to have ever offered a top prize worth over one billion dollars, and as Johnston himself said, big jackpots are one of the biggest drivers of ticket sales for these games.
If Mega Millions were the only game offering massive jackpots, a price increase might not have mattered as much, but players still have an obvious, cheaper alternative: Powerball.
Powerball vs Mega Millions
Powerball offers access to similar high-dollar prizes at 40% of the price, but without the same secondary perks as Mega Millions.
So what do the sales numbers actually tell us about what happened to the missing Mega Millions players?
Between fiscal years 2025 and 2026, Mega Millions sales fell 14.5% while Powerball sales rose 88%. Obviously, not all of Powerball’s growth comes from former Mega Millions players, but it shows a startling contrast between the two games.
Powerball maintained its $2 price point and didn't add any game enhancements or odds changes like Mega Millions did, and sales figures show players prefer a lower game price.
The MMC may have been mathematically right, but psychologically wrong in redesigning Mega Millions. The ticket is unquestionably a better value proposition in real-money terms, but that’s not why players buy lottery tickets.
It's technically true that when you buy a lottery ticket, you’re buying a chance to win a massive prize. However, most players know their odds of winning are so remote that they shouldn't expect to collect a check.
What most people are really buying is the fantasy that they could be rich. That the small piece of paper in their pocket could potentially be worth millions of dollars. Mega Millions sells that fantasy for $5. Powerball sells the same fantasy for $2.
Some of the game’s new features might not be attractive enough to offset that price difference. For example, while Mega Millions did slightly increase the odds of winning a jackpot, it is still so unlikely that the change is almost statistically irrelevant.
Mega Millions’ starting jackpot of $50 million is 60% higher than Powerball’s starting jackpot of $20 million. Still, that advantage fades quickly as jackpots roll over from one drawing to the next and Powerball’s top prize climbs into the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
Mathematically, Mega Millions is a better value proposition, even if it's more expensive, but psychologically, players see essentially the same game, with one costing 60% more than the other.
Inflation
Another factor that may be contributing to the sales slump is inflation. From the gas pump to the grocery store, Americans are paying more money for essential goods and services, and consumers are increasingly conscious of their spending and prices.
While an additional $3 isn’t a massive sum, it may have pushed players past the threshold they were comfortable spending on a nonessential item.
Consider someone who bought one Mega Millions ticket a week at the old price, spent only $104 a year. But under the new price, those same tickets add up to $260.
When every dollar counts, three dollars may count even more.
Players don’t like change
Mega Millions isn’t the first lottery game to raise its price and offer more value, but past cases show players resist when something they’re used to suddenly changes.
In 2013, Camelot, the operator of Britain’s national lottery, struggled with declining sales.
The company’s leadership redesigned its Lotto game, doubling prices from one pound to two pounds and redesigning the game’s prize structure to create larger jackpots and secondary prizes.
Players voted with their wallets, and total Lotto ticket sales declined immediately after the price increase. Total sales revenue did increase because the higher price meant Camelot could make more money with fewer customers, but the changes failed to stop the long-term trend of players losing interest in the lottery.
Camelot tried to reinvigorate sales again in 2015 by actually making it harder to win a jackpot in Lotto. They expanded the number pool from 49 to 59 and changed the odds of winning a jackpot from 1:14 million to 1:45 million.
While this may seem counterintuitive to attracting new players, the logic was that making the jackpot harder to win would also help it grow faster, and as we’ve seen with both Powerball and Mega Millions, massive top prizes sell more tickets.
Unfortunately, much like the 2013 redesign, the change created an initial burst of excitement, but ticket sales declined by 8.8% a year after the changes, and Camelot CEO Nigel Railton admitted players were not happy with the new prize structure.
The Canadian Lottery tried a similar experiment in the 2000s, raising the price of its popular 6/49 draw game from one dollar to two in 2004 and then again from two dollars to three in 2013. While the number of players predictably decreased, total sales revenue increased slightly.
The numbers suggest consumers are extremely price sensitive when it comes to lottery tickets. So while a small increase can boost sales revenue, games can also take long-term hits when they drive former customers away.
Given that most players have access to dozens of games at several price points, if one game becomes too expensive, it’s easy to pivot to another game with a better price.
The way forward
Is there any way for Mega Millions to arrest its sales slide and turn a business disaster into success, or at least less of a disaster?
There’s probably no easy way forward, but the MMC does have a few options. When the new game launched, headlines focused on the price increase, not the new prize structure, so a marketing campaign highlighting the game’s benefits could help players better understand the stronger value proposition.
A research paper by marketing professors at New York University, UC San Diego, and Boston College suggests the MMC could have raised prices by a smaller amount and still increased sales revenue, even if total tickets sold declined.
While it's probably too soon to cut ticket prices, the MMC could try offering a different version of the game at a lower price.
One option might be to offer a lower-priced Mega Millions ‘basic’ ticket. Strip away a couple of the new features, such as the automatic multiplier, and see if you can tempt players back with a lower-priced ticket that offers the chance to win the same massive jackpot.
Either way, Mega Millions provides a strong example for any lottery organization considering a massive increase in ticket prices.
