The Megamillions has rolled over. The cash value is $125M the annuity value is $220M. The cash value is higher than Powerball's and I doubt that Powerball will catch up again in this run. The previous jackpot reached a cash value of $107.7M, which is close to what MM predicted and less than I predicted
As before, the lottery continues to rise as if it had skipped a drawing. The jackpot/sales were more consistent with a 13th drawing than a 12th drawing. I will therefore treat this upcoming drawing as a 14th drawing statistically rather than as if it were a 13th - an ad hoc approach, that is nonetheless giving reasonable predictions of jackpot evolution.
13th drawing sales average $57.4M. If this many tickets were sold the probability of various numbers of winners would be as follows:
0 | 72.13% |
1 | 23.56% |
2 | 3.85% |
3 | 0.42% |
4 | 0.03% |
Treated as a 14th drawing, the long term probability model is lagging slightly behind actual events, but it is still close, within 2%.
Here is what it suggests for jackpot evolution, should the MM continue to roll:
| $684,862,181.24 | $388,813,291 | 42.28% | 0.68% |
| $600,124,807.05 | $340,705,777 | 46.69% | 1.62% |
| $525,165,496.53 | $298,149,512 | 50.98% | 3.46% |
| $458,855,933.74 | $260,503,924 | 55.10% | 6.79% |
(Average Annuity, M) | $400,198,002.04 | $227,202,358 | 59.02% | 12.32% |
$315 | $348,308,760.02 | $197,743,545 | 62.73% | 20.87% |
$262 | $302,407,151.17 | $171,684,060 | 66.20% | 33.28% |
$247 | $261,802,247.08 | $148,631,646 | 69.42% | 50.27% |
$201 | $225,882,847.37 | $128,239,310 | 72.41% | 72.41% |
If the model predicts things accurately, we see we now have a 50% chance of an annuity jackpot around $300M.