Powerball vs Mega Millions: Which Is Better?

Five nights a week, millions of Americans check their tickets hoping to become an overnight billionaire. That's right, billionaire! The US Powerball and Mega Millions are the two giants of the lottery world, and between them they hold every one of the largest lottery Jackpots ever won, with the record standing at a whopping US$2.04B. But if you're only buying one ticket, which one should it be?

We went through every draw since 2012, that's a grand total of 1,816 Powerball and 1,360 Mega Millions draws, to compare them side by side. Which is easier to win, which Jackpot gets bigger, and which pays back more? Let's find out!

1. Powerball and Mega Millions at a glance
2. Which is easier to win?
3. How often is the Jackpot won?
4. Which Jackpot gets bigger?
5. Which pays back more?
6. So, Powerball or Mega Millions?

Powerball and Mega Millions at a glance

At first glance, they're almost twins. In both games you pick 5 main numbers, plus one extra ball from a separate barrel: the Powerball or the Mega Ball. Match all 6 and the Jackpot is yours! The devil is in the details though.

Mega Millions had a big shake-up in April 2025: the price jumped from $2 to $5, one Mega Ball was removed from the barrel (from 25 down to 24), every ticket now comes with a random 2x to 10x multiplier on the smaller prizes, and the Jackpot starts higher. Powerball has kept the same format since 2015, with an optional Power Play multiplier for an extra $1.

Which is easier to win?

On paper, it's neck and neck. The odds of winning the Jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338 for the Powerball and 1 in 290,472,336 for Mega Millions, which became slightly easier to win when it dropped a Mega Ball in 2025.

Those numbers are so big they're hard to picture, so here's a quick way to put them into perspective. If you bought one Powerball ticket for every draw, three times a week, you would wait on average 1.9 million years to win the Jackpot. That's around 6 times longer than humans have been around!

But here's the thing: a Mega Millions ticket costs $5, while a Powerball ticket costs $2. With $10, you can buy 5 Powerball tickets but only 2 Mega Millions tickets. Dollar for dollar, your chances of winning the Powerball Jackpot are about 2.5 times better!

Long odds can be hard to picture, so why not see for yourself? Our Powerball and Mega Millions simulators let you play thousands of games with virtual money, and keep count of how much you would have spent.

How often is the Jackpot won?

With odds that long, most draws have no Jackpot winner. When that happens, the Jackpot rolls over to the next draw and keeps growing. So how long does it usually take for someone to win it? Here's what the draws since 2012 tell us.

* The median: half of the Jackpots were won faster than this, and half took longer.

Plenty of Jackpots are won within a handful of draws, but it's the long runs that make the headlines. They're rarer than you might think: as the Jackpot grows, more and more tickets are sold, and it becomes more and more likely that somebody picks the winning numbers.

The longest Powerball run in our data went 75 draws without a winner, from 8 January 2022 until 29 June 2022, when a single lucky ticket won the $367M Jackpot. That's 5 months without a winner!

The longest Mega Millions run in our data went 40 draws without a winner, from 1 July 2025 until 14 November 2025, when a single lucky ticket won the $980M Jackpot. That's 4 months without a winner!

Keep in mind that the Powerball is drawn three times a week and Mega Millions twice, so a Powerball run of the same length is over much sooner.

Which Jackpot gets bigger?

Every rollover adds to the Jackpot, and the more tickets are sold, the faster it grows. Here is every Jackpot since 2012. Each climb is a run of draws without a winner, and each drop is a lucky winner taking it all home.

Keep in mind that these are the advertised Jackpots, which are paid as an annuity over 29 years. Winners who would rather take the cash get about half, and that's before tax even comes into it. Still not exactly chump change!

The biggest Jackpots won

Want to know where the Jackpots are at right now? Check the current Powerball Jackpot and Mega Millions Jackpot.

Which pays back more?

The Jackpot gets all the attention, but the vast majority of winning tickets win one of the smaller prizes. So for every dollar spent, how much comes back from those prizes alone?

* The advertised Jackpot, as if it was paid in full, tax free and never shared. As we found when estimating how many Powerball tickets are sold, the real value is a lot lower.

Powerball's smaller prizes are fixed amounts, from $4 for matching just the Powerball to $1 million for 5 numbers, and we've left out the optional Power Play. Every Mega Millions ticket has a random multiplier, so we used the prizes actually paid since the April 2025 changes. That multiplier is what puts Mega Millions ahead: its smaller prizes pay back more for every dollar spent, which partly makes up for the higher price.

Either way, you get back well under a dollar for every dollar spent. That's no surprise: it's how lotteries fund their Jackpots, running costs and good causes.

So, Powerball or Mega Millions?

There's no clear winner, it all depends on what you're after:

• For the best chance at the Jackpot for your money: the Powerball. It's $2 a ticket, so the same budget buys 2.5 times as many chances.
• For the smaller prizes: Mega Millions, thanks to its built-in multiplier.
• For the record-breaking Jackpots: the Powerball, home of the largest Jackpot ever, although Mega Millions isn't far behind.

And whichever you choose, remember that with odds of around 1 in 290 million, a lottery ticket is best enjoyed as a bit of fun rather than a plan for retirement.

Still can't decide? Play both for free with virtual money in our Powerball and Mega Millions simulators. Who knows, you might hit the Jackpot on your first go!

Gambling should be fun. If it isn't anymore, free and confidential help is available. In the US, call 1-800-GAMBLER. In Australia, contact Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858.