Welcome to our guide to the Mega Millions lottery. This lotto from the USA has huge jackpots and we’re going to reveal how you can play from the UK. We’ve got everything you need to know about how this lottery works, the odds of winning and where to find the Mega Millions results. To kick things off, here’s a little information about our recommended websites for UK Mega Millions players.
- All
50% Free Credit on First Deposit up to €200
50% Free Credit on First Deposit up to €200
- Play a dozen lotteries worldwide
- Join syndicates and pool resources
- Complete results service
Get Your First Stake Back as a FREE Bet up to £5 if it Loses
Get Your First Stake Back as a FREE Bet up to £5 if it Loses
- Win Millions With Lotteries From Around The World
- Full Sportsbook With In-Play Betting
- Casino, Bingo And Scratchcards Available
Playing the Mega Millions Lottery in the UK
The Mega Millions lottery is an American game, available in 45 different states. Launched in 1996 under the original moniker of ‘The Big Game’, the Mega Millions is aptly named. There are some absolutely huge jackpots on offer.
In 2018, the largest ever Mega Millions jackpot was won by an anonymous player who bought the ticket in South Carolina, That player took home a prize pool of $1.537 billion, which is the world record amount claimed by a single player. Though the rival Powerball lottery had a bigger jackpot prize of $1.586 billion in 2016, it was shared among several players.
With those sort of figures available, it’s no wonder that UK lottery players want a slice of the action. Though it’s not possible to buy Mega Millions lottery tickets online from the UK, you can bet on the numbers on the draw.
Operators that provide this sort of lottery betting like Lottoland and Sir Lotto, get you to pick out five numbers between 1 and 70 and then the ‘Mega Ball’ between 1 and 25, just as you would if you were buying regular Mega Millions tickets from a lottery retailer with a lottery terminal in the USA.
How Mega Millions UK Works
If the white balls that you select match up to one of more of the Mega Millions numbers, you will land the sum that you would have won, if the official prize fund was shared between you and the actual lottery winners.
Should you be lucky enough to pick out all five of the Mega Millions winning numbers, along with the Mega Ball, then you’ll get a share of the massive jackpot prize. Lottery winners pay tax in the US, so to reflect that, the top prizes are subject to a 38% reduction. If you were to land the Mega Millions lottery jackpot, it would be paid out as a 30-year annuity, or a discounted lump sum from Sir Lotto or Lottoland coffers.
A regular bet is essentially the same as buying a single ticket and costs £3. When the jackpot reaches a level of approximately £387m, the cost of a single bet increases to £6.
There are also a number of different options when you’re filling out your numbers on the bet slip. Amongst them is the ability to enable a device called ‘The MegaPlier’ on your lottery bet, which we are going to explain below.
The MegaPlier
The MegaPlier is a multiplier device which can multiply your Mega Millions prizes. It costs £1 extra to activate the MegaPlier and depending on how lucky you get, that could be a very wise investment.
When you use the MegaPlier option, you can multiply your winnings on any prize aside from the jackpot, by either x2/x3/x4/or x5. The amount that the winnings are multiplied is determined by a random number generator.
Whatever you get with the MegaPlier number, it’s going to make a big difference to any prize. Say you get the second prize by picking out the five main numbers and that pays the average individual prize amount of £680,000. If that’s doubled it swells to a prize of £1,360,000. Should you get the x5 MegaPlier then the cash value prize would be £3,400,000!
Mega Millions UK Draws
The Mega Millions is drawn twice a week. It takes place every Tuesday and Friday night in Atlanta, Georgia USA at around 11pm local time. Don’t forget those draw dates.
That means that the Mega Millions drawing time in the UK is around 4am on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. It’s unlikely that many UK players will be watching the draw live at that time and later on in this article, we will explain your options for finding the results.
The first five balls, set of numbers 1 to 70, are drawn out of a separate pot to the Mega Ball, which has its own pot featuring balls numbered 1 to 25. Per game rules, this multi-draw is fully automated with the pots featuring a mechanism that sees the ball being pulled out, without the need for a human to draw them. You can therefore be sure that the draw is completely random and fair.
With the balls being in consecutive draws twice a week, you’re never that far from the Mega Millions next drawing. It’s one of the reasons that the jackpot can rapidly escalate and reach such huge figures.
The Odds of Hitting the Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot
Considering the jackpot amount for Mega Millions can get to be so big, you’re probably wondering what the odds are of winning it. The overall odds of picking out just the jackpot and all winning Mega Millions numbers are 302,575,350/1.
They’re suitably huge odds for a potentially massive prize. With a lottery bet it’s very different to placing a wager on a horse or a football match, where you’re looking for odds that provide some value. A lottery bet is more for fun, in the hope that you might get very lucky. Everyone knows that it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll ever win the jackpot. Yet people do get that fortunate and win the big prize, so why couldn’t it be you?
When it comes to winning any prize at all, the odds are a much more reasonable 24/1. That’s not bad at all, especially when some of those prizes are so big. Here’s the breakdown of the odds for the different jackpot and non-jackpot prizes on a winning ticket in the Mega Millions lottery.
| Mega Millions Numbers | Odds |
| Mega Ball | 37/1 |
| 1 Number + Mega Ball | 89/1 |
| 2 Numbers + Mega Ball | 693/1 |
| 3 Numbers | 606/1 |
| 3 Numbers + Mega Ball | 14,547/1 |
| 4 Numbers | 38,792/1 |
| 4 Numbers + Mega Ball | 931,001/1 |
| 5 Numbers | 12,607,306/1 |
| 5 Numbers + Mega Ball | 302,575,350/1 |
Mega Millions Lottery Results
As previously stated, with the Mega Millions UK results coming through at around 4am, you might want a few different options as to where to look at them.
If you’re a night owl/very early riser, then you could watch the draw live at the official Mega Millions website. They’re all uploaded to the official YouTube channel, so there’s also the option of watching the draw later on in the day.
Should you just want to see the numbers, this can also be viewed at the Mega Millions website. Perhaps a more logical place to get your Mega Millions lottery results though, is at the site where you placed your bet.
If that’s Sir Lotto, then they have a dedicated page showing the results for Mega Millions. For each draw they show the number of winners there were, how much they won, the number of MegPlier winners and how much they won. You can also look back at past drawing results over the last ten years.
So even if you’re playing Mega Millions from the UK, keeping up with the latest results is not difficult at all. Much like every other aspect of playing this lottery from the UK, it’s almost just as easy as if you were a resident of the USA.
50% Free Credit on First Deposit up to €200
50% Free Credit on First Deposit up to €200
- Play a dozen lotteries worldwide
- Join syndicates and pool resources
- Complete results service
How to Play Mega Millions
As we’ve just said, playing Mega Millions is a pretty straightforward affair for UK players. That said, we’d hate for you to make a mistake along the way.
We’re going to take you through every step of the process, from first registering to confirming your first Mega Millions bet. As an example, we’re showing you how to simply bet on a single Mega Millions line, using one of our recommended providers in Lottoland.
Step 1: Visit a Recommended Provider
To begin playing Mega Millions online, visit the Lottoland (or Sir Lotto) website. In the top right hand corner, is a tab marked ‘Register’ which you should click. This will present a pop up.
Step 2: Register An Account
On the pop up you register your details in order to open your account. Start with entering your email and selecting a password, or you can instead use your Facebook or Google details. Then enter your name, date of birth and address. Confirm your age and the terms and conditions, before pressing the green button marked ‘Create A New Account’.
Step 3: Find The Mega Millions Section
Once registered, take a look at the green bar that runs across the top of the Lottoland website. One of the tabs is marked ‘More Jackpots’. Hover over it and a new menu will appear, showing various different lottery games. At the far end is the Mega Millions lottery. Click on it to go to the Mega Millions section.
Step 4: Select Your Numbers
On the Mega Millions UK section there are a range of different playslips. You might see that some quick picks have already been filled out automatically. To clear these, hover over each slip and click on the bin icon. Once cleared, in the first slip choose five different numbers. The at the bottom of the slip, choose your Mega Ball number from the drop down menu.
Step 5: Finalise Your Details
Beneath the playslips are a number of grey boxes. In the first select which draw you want to bet on. Then in the next, choose for how many weeks you want to make this bet, ranging from one to a full year. If you choose a number of weeks, you can select to pay for it via a regular subscription.
There is also the opportunity to set up a ‘Hunt’, which is where you continue playing the same numbers until the current jackpot is won. In the next section to the right, you can set for your bet slip to only start playing once the jackpot reaches a certain level, along with choosing to pick a draw to play on in the future. Finally, there is a box where you can click to enable the Megaplier.
Step 6: Confirm Bet And Pay
Below that row of boxes is another box which shows you your selected bet and how much it costs. If you’ve just selected one line, with the jackpot under £387m, then it will only cost £3. Adding the MegaPlier bumps the cost up another £1 and make it £4.
If you are satisfied with the bet you’ve made, click on the green button marked ‘Place Bet’. This will take you to the payment section, where you can choose your method and enter your details. Once that’s done, all that’s left to do is to wait for the Mega Millions lottery draw.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our guide to the Mega Millions lottery. We’ve show you how to play Mega Millions from the UK, which is really not such a different experience to buying a legitimate ticket in the US. By providing betting on the result of the Mega Millions draw, UK companies have found a way to way to bring this game to our shores.
Even the prizes are essentially the same, dwarfing what you could win at an official lottery in the UK, such as Euromillions. UK lotto fans have never had so much choice as to where to spend their money and Mega Millions is a compelling option. We think that one of the best sites to bet on this game is Lottoland, who also have a sportsbook and casino.
Get Your First Stake Back as a FREE Bet up to £5 if it Loses
Get Your First Stake Back as a FREE Bet up to £5 if it Loses
- Win Millions With Lotteries From Around The World
- Full Sportsbook With In-Play Betting
- Casino, Bingo And Scratchcards Available
