DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The cost of buying a Mega Millions jackpot dream will soon more than double, but lottery officials said they're confident players won't mind paying more after changes that will lead to larger prizes and more frequent winners.
Lottery officials announced Monday that it will cost $5 to play Mega Millions, beginning in April, up from the current $2 per ticket. The price increase will be one of many changes to Mega Millions that officials said will result in improved jackpot odds, more frequent giant prizes and even larger payouts.
“Spending 5 bucks to become a millionaire or billionaire, that's pretty good,” said Joshua Johnston, director of the Washington Lottery and lead director of the group that oversees Mega Millions.
Mega Millions and its lottery compatriot Powerball are sold in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is sold in Puerto Rico.
Powerball officials said they have no plans to change that game's odds or the $2 price for most tickets.
Mega Millions' hope is that by increasing ticket revenue and rejiggering the odds — now set at 1 in 302.6 million — to something less stratospheric, more people will win jackpots even as prizes grow extraordinarily high, which attracts more players. The goal is to increase revenue and provide more money to state lotteries, which in turn spend it on a variety of government services.
Mega Millions will introduce changes at a time when fewer people are buying tickets and jackpots need to reach ever-higher figures before sporadic players notice and opt to buy a ticket or two. Whereas a $500 million jackpot once prompted lines out convenience store doors, top prizes of $1 billion now often draw more of a ho-hum response.
Those much-hyped jackpot numbers also could take a hit as interest rates fall. That's because on billboards or other advertisements, state lotteries emphasize the annuity payout for jackpots, distributed over decades from an investment fund. As interest rates have been high, the annuity jackpots have more than doubled the cash prizes that winners nearly always choose.
With an expectation that interest rates will drop, those annuity jackpot figures will decline, so the advertised jackpot won't seem quite so massive.
Johnston said expected declines in interest rates were not a factor in the upcoming changes.
The biggest motivation was to differentiate Mega Millions from Powerball and attract customers who might now pass on both games, Johnston said.
More than doubling the ticket price is a big move, but Johnston said research shows people feel comfortable spending at least $5 when they buy scratch tickets or chances at the draw games, like Mega Millions. It is the second price increase since the game was created in 2002.
“You pay 5 bucks for your Starbucks,” Johnston noted.
Lottery officials will announce more specifics about the changes in the coming months, he said.
FILE - A Mega Millions logo is displayed on a vending machine at the Hoosier Lottery booth at the Indiana State Fair, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A court order that says hospitals cannot federally be required to provide pregnancy terminations when they violate a Texas abortion ban will stay for now, the Supreme Court said Monday.
The decision is another setback for opponents of Texas’ abortion ban, which for two years has withstood multiple legal challenges, including from women who had serious pregnancy complications and have been turned away by doctors.
It left Texas as the only state where the Biden administration is unable to enforce its interpretation of a federal law in an effort to ensure women still have access to emergency abortions when their health or life is at risk.
The justices did not detail their reasoning for keeping in place a lower court order, and there were no publicly noted dissents. Texas had asked the justices to leave the order in place while the Biden administration had asked the justices to throw it out.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision “a major victory.”
The Biden administration argues that a federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires emergency rooms to provide abortions if a pregnant patient’s health or life is at serious risk, even in states where the procedure is banned. The law only applies to emergency rooms that receive Medicare funding, which most hospitals do.
The Supreme Court decision comes weeks before a presidential election in which Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has put abortion at the center of her campaign, attacking Republican challenger Donald Trump for appointing judges to the high court who overturned nationwide abortion rights in 2022.
“I will never stop fighting for a woman’s right to emergency medical care — and to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade so that women in every state have access to the care they need,” Harris said on social media Monday evening.
Texas' abortion ban has been a centerpiece of Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred ’s challenge against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cuz for his seat.
At a campaign event over the weekend in Fort Worth, Texas, hundreds of Allred’s supporters broke out in raucous applause when he vowed to protect a woman’s right to an abortion. “When I’m in the Senate, we’re going to restore Roe v. Wade," Allred said.
At a separate event the same day, in a nearby suburb, Cruz outlined a litany of criticisms against Allred, but didn’t bring up the abortion law.
Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion. Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state's ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.
In asking the Supreme Court to toss out the lower court decision, the administration pointed to a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues. At the time the Idaho case began, the state had an exception for the life, but not the health, of a woman.
Texas said its case is different, however, because the law provides some exceptions if a pregnant patient's health is at risk.
Texas pointed to a state Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. Doctors, though, have said the Texas law is dangerously vague, and a medical board has refused to list all the conditions that qualify for an exception.
Marc Hearron, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said doctors in Texas got no clarity from the Supreme Court on Monday.
“The health care crisis is ongoing,” Hearron said. “Patients are going to continue to suffer.”
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis who has written extensively about abortion, said there remains much uncertainty for doctors in Texas, who could risk life in prison for performing abortions.
“I think we’re going to continue to see physicians turning away patients, even patients who could qualify under the state’s exceptions, because the consequences of guessing wrong are so severe and the laws are not that clear,” Ziegler said.
The Texas case started after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, leading to abortion restrictions in many Republican-controlled states. The Biden administration issued guidance saying hospitals still needed to provide abortions in emergency situations under a health care law that requires most hospitals to treat any patients in medical distress.
Texas sued over that guidance, arguing that hospitals cannot be required to provide abortions that would violate its ban. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state, ruling in January that the administration had overstepped its authority.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a post on X, “Reproductive rights are under assault in this country and women’s health and lives remain in danger from the chaos and confusion caused by overturning Roe.”
Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas. AP reporters Amanda Seitz in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and Aamer Madhani in Washington also contributed to this report.
Supreme Court lets stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate Texas ban
Supreme Court lets stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate Texas ban
FILE - The Supreme Court building is seen, June 28, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
