Undeterred by the miniscule odds, people were lining up Friday for a chance to score the estimated $333 million Mega Millions jackpot. The odds really are microscopic. You have a one in 175,711,536 chance of winning. That's a 0.0000006% chance. Still, since tickets are just $1, and the jackpot payout is double the odds of winning, if a person bought all 176 million combinations, he or she would be guaranteed to win at least $157 million. So playing the Mega Millions on Friday could make sense ... if you could afford to spend $176 million on tickets. Bear in mind, that only works if there is a single winner who doesn't take a lump sum payout. The 12-state lottery anticipates hundreds of millions tickets to be purchased before the 11 p.m. ET drawing Friday night for what will be at least the third-largest U.S. lottery jackpot of all time. The New York Mega Millions branch said it expects ticket sales to eclipse $1 million per hour starting with the noon hour on Friday. "This is a huge jackpot," said Jennifer Givner, spokeswoman for the New York Mega Millions. "There's a lot of excitement about it, and we probably made a conservative estimate of the jackpot." Mega Millions guarantees its jackpot, so it could go even higher, depending on the number of ticket sales. In fact, Mega Millions raised its jackpot estimate by $8 million on Friday based on stronger-than-expected sales. Sander Sharman, who owns the newsstand on 9th Avenue and 57th Street in New York said Mega Millions sales have been overwhelming. The line for lottery tickets was out the door. "It's never been anything like this," said Sharman just before 1 p.m. ET on Friday. "We usually do 1,200 sales in a day, and already we have 4,200." All of that business is good news for retailers like Sharman. Lottery retailers get a 6% commission on all sales and a $10,000 bonus for selling the jackpot-winning ticket.
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