GREENSBORO, N.C. — The Mega Millions jackpot grows again to a staggering $1.3 billion. Your odds of winning: not as large at 1 in 302 million. Here are ways to boost your odds.
Play other games
There are several games with much better odds you can play in North Carolina. The state lottery lists the odds of every single scratch-off game on their website. You can see the odds of winning any amount of money plus the odds of winning the top prize.
Normally the higher the grand prize the less chance you have of winning. But that's not always true, so it pays to check before you buy a ticket.
For example on Holiday 500's you have a 1 in 2.5 million chance to win a $150,000. But if you play 20X the Cash, you've got a 1 in 1 million chance to win $250,000.
The best odds to win a top prize are a 1 in 25 chance to win $100 bucks with 50 or 100.
Bonus trick: The North Carolina lottery website also tells you how many top prizes remain. It only takes a couple of minutes of research to really boost your chances of winning.
Use statistics to pick your numbers
If you still want to play Mega Millions for the biggest prizes, statisticians say you can use the history of most and least drawn numbers to help boost your odds.
According to lottonumbers.com, these are the most common numbers picked in the past. (Note: These are the white balls.)
- 14: Drawn 52 times
- 17: Drawn 51 times
- 38: Drawn 49 times
- 31: Drawn 49 times
- 10: Drawn 49 times
- 3: Drawn 47 times
- 46: Drawn 47 times
- 8: Drawn 47 times
- 20: Drawn 46 times
- 4: Drawn 46 times
Most common Mega Ball numbers
These numbers had the most draws for the Mega Balls in recent years:
- 22: Drawn 32 times
- 11: Drawn 38 times
- 9: Drawn 26 times
- 18: Drawn 25 times
- 10: Drawn 25 times
- 24: Drawn 25 times
- 13: Drawn 24 times
- 17: Drawn 24 times
- 19: Drawn 24 times
- 25: Drawn 24 times
The "unluckiest" number
The unluckiest main number is 49. It's been picked the least often. Since 2017, it has only been drawn 25 times. It was last drawn on Apr. 29, 2022.
The least drawn Mega Ball number is 8. Since 2017 it's been drawn 16 times. It was last drawn Dec. 23, 2022.
Most overdue numbers
Statistically, you might be better off with the numbers that haven't been drawn in the longest time. After all, odds are they all pop up eventually.
Main numbers:
- 49: Last drawn 256 days ago
- 42: Last drawn 203 days ago
- 10: Last drawn 154 days ago
- 12: Last drawn 144 days ago
- 27: Last drawn 137 days ago
- 57: Last drawn 133 days ago
- 65: Last drawn 133 days ago
- 39: Last drawn 130 days ago
- 60: Last drawn 130 days ago
- 50: Last drawn 109 days ago
Mega Ball numbers:
- 5: Last drawn 298 days ago
- 24: Last drawn 224 days ago
- 4: Last drawn 214 days ago
- 15: Last drawn 168 days ago
- 14: Last drawn 161 days ago
- 3: Last drawn 144 days ago
- 20: Last drawn 130 days ago
- 12: Last drawn 116 days ago
- 10: Last drawn 112 days ago
- 1: Last drawn 91 days ago