The $5 Mega Millions: What Changed in April 2025
Mega Millions went to $5 a play with a built-in multiplier and a smaller Mega Ball drum. Here is what that means for odds and for the results you see.
Mega Millions had its biggest overhaul in years in April 2025. The last draw of the old game was on Friday, April 4, and the new version started on Tuesday, April 8. There have been 164 draws of the new game since.
What changed
- Price: $2 a play became $5.
- Mega Ball: the gold ball's range went from 1–25 to 1–24.
- Multiplier: the optional Megaplier was dropped. Every play now comes with a multiplier of 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 10x printed on the ticket, and it applies automatically to every prize except the jackpot.
- Odds: with one fewer Mega Ball the jackpot odds improved slightly, to 1 in 290,472,336.
The white balls didn't change. They've been numbered 1 to 70 since October 2017.
Why the results look different now
Under the old game the Megaplier was drawn, so every result had one. Now the multiplier belongs to your ticket, not to the draw, so there's nothing to publish. That's why our Mega Millions history shows a multiplier on older draws and none on recent ones. To see your multiplier, look to the right of the Mega Ball on each line of your ticket.
What it means for statistics
Mixing the two games would skew the numbers. Mega Ball 25 can't be drawn any more, for example. On our Mega Millions statistics page, white-ball counts go back to October 2017 and Mega Ball counts start on April 8, 2025. With only a year and a half of new-format draws, expect the Mega Ball figures to be uneven for a while. That's what small samples look like, not a sign that some numbers are favored.