How Powerball and Mega Millions Odds Work
Last updated: October 28, 2026
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Powerball and Mega Millions look similar on a play slip: five white-ball numbers, plus one special ball from a second pool. The size of those pools is the whole story of the jackpot odds. This page counts the combinations the way the games are actually drawn, using the matrices in effect on October 28, 2026.
Two pools, and order does not matter
A drawing machine does not care whether your white balls were marked in ascending order. Matching 12, 19, 33, 40, and 61 is the same ticket as those digits written the other way around. The count of white-ball sets is therefore a combination, not a permutation. You are counting committees of five numbers, then multiplying by the special ball, which is drawn from its own machine.
The special ball is not “one more white ball.” It comes from a smaller pool, and it is required for the jackpot. Matching the five white balls and missing the special ball is a large secondary prize in both games. It is not the jackpot.
Powerball, counted
Powerball asks for five different numbers from 1 through 69, and one Powerball from 1 through 26. The number of ways to choose 5 out of 69 is
C(69, 5) = (69 × 68 × 67 × 66 × 65) / (5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1) = 11,238,513.
Each of those sets is paired with one of 26 Powerballs, so the jackpot pool is 11,238,513 × 26 = 292,201,338. One combination wins. The published jackpot odds are 1 in 292,201,338 per $2 play. The homepage rounds that to 1 in 292.2 million.
That figure is the chance that a single play matches the five white balls and the Powerball. It is not the chance of winning something. Powerball pays nine ways, down to a prize for the Powerball alone. The published chance of any prize on a $2 play is about 1 in 24.9. Almost all of that “any prize” probability is a small fixed prize. Reading 1 in 25 as if it were the jackpot is the most common misreading of the game.
Drawings are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern. A standard play is $2. In Idaho and Montana, Power Play is bundled and the minimum is higher. Power Play, sold for an extra $1 where it is optional, multiplies non-jackpot prizes. The Match 5 prize with Power Play is $2 million rather than a full multiply of the $1 million base. The 10× Power Play level is only in play when the advertised jackpot is $150 million or less. None of those add-ons change the 1 in 292,201,338 jackpot odds. Double Play is a separate drawing for an extra dollar in participating places; it is a different prize list topped at $10 million, not a second Powerball jackpot.
The official matrix and prize chart are on powerball.com. California pays pari-mutuel amounts rather than the fixed prizes other states advertise. If you play there, the odds of matching are the same and the dollar amounts are not.
Mega Millions, counted
Mega Millions asks for five different numbers from 1 through 70, and one Mega Ball from 1 through 24. Choosing 5 out of 70 gives
C(70, 5) = (70 × 69 × 68 × 67 × 66) / 120 = 12,103,014.
Times 24 Mega Balls, that is 12,103,014 × 24 = 290,472,336. The published jackpot odds are 1 in 290,472,336. The homepage rounds that to 1 in 290.5 million.
Before the 2025 matrix change, the Mega Ball was drawn from 1 through 25. The white-ball pool was already 1–70, so the old jackpot count was 12,103,014 × 25 = 302,575,350, the “1 in 302.6 million” figure still quoted on older pages. Shrinking the Mega Ball pool by one number is why the odds got shorter, not a change in the white balls. A $5 play now includes a multiplier of 2×, 3×, 4×, 5×, or 10×, assigned at random when you buy. The multiplier applies to non-jackpot prizes. It does not apply to the jackpot, and it does not change how many jackpot combinations exist.
There are nine winning tiers. Matching only the Mega Ball pays a small prize (the published range, after the multiplier, runs from $10 to $50). The published chance of any prize is about 1 in 23. As with Powerball, that number is mostly the easy tiers. Drawings are Tuesday and Friday at 11:00 p.m. Eastern. The current how-to-play page is megamillions.com/how-to-play.
Why the jackpots can get large
The jackpot is funded from ticket sales and rolls when nobody matches all six numbers. A matrix of roughly 290 million combinations is why several drawings in a row often produce no jackpot winner, and why the advertised annuity climbs. The annuity is a stream of payments. The cash option is the present value of that stream and is lower. Neither number is the profit on a ticket. A later guide, how to read jackpot odds, covers shared prizes and why “better odds” on a smaller game is not free money.
What the generator does with these pools
The Powerball tab shuffles the integers 1 through 69 and keeps five, then draws the Powerball from 1 through 26. The Mega Millions tab does the same with 1 through 70 and a Mega Ball from 1 through 24, so it will not offer 25. Each remaining number is equally likely. The button does not look at past drawings, and it does not prefer birthdays or avoid them. A set it prints is one of the 292,201,338 or 290,472,336 combinations, with the same chance as any other.
That is the entire mechanical content of the jackpot odds. The rest — whether you would enjoy buying a ticket, whether you can afford it, whether the drawing is tonight — is outside the arithmetic. See responsible play and the schedule guide.