Do Some States Win the Lottery More Than Others? The Real Math Behind New York, California, and Illinois

By Cory Diggs August 22, 2026

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Introduction

On August 12, 2026, a single ticket sold in Illinois matched all six Powerball numbers and won an estimated $1.04 billion, the eighth-largest jackpot in the game's history. If you had asked me three days earlier whether Illinois was "due," I would have told you that question does not really mean anything. The odds on that ticket were exactly 1 in 292,201,338, the same as every other ticket sold that night in every other state.

But I get why the question keeps coming up. Scan any list of the biggest lottery winners by state and a pattern jumps out. New York and California show up again and again in Mega Millions history. Indiana dominates Powerball. Illinois, despite being the sixth most populous state in the country, sits well behind both. So is something actually going on, or is this just what randomness looks like once you zoom out far enough? I pulled the real numbers to find out.

The Actual State-by-State Win Counts

Start with what has really happened. A recent breakdown of jackpot winners by state puts Indiana at the top of Powerball's all-time list with 39 jackpot wins, followed by Missouri with 32, Minnesota with 22, Pennsylvania with 20, Wisconsin and Kentucky with 19 each, Louisiana and Florida with 17 each, California also at 17, and Arizona with 14.

Mega Millions tells a different story. New York leads that list with 43 jackpot wins, California follows with 35, then New Jersey with 25, Ohio with 21, Michigan with 18, Georgia with 17, Illinois with 16, Texas with 15, Maryland with 11, and Virginia with 10.

Look closely at that second list. Illinois is not absent. It sits seventh, ahead of Texas, a state with more than twice its population. The gap people notice is really a gap between Illinois and the two states at the very top, not a gap between Illinois and everyone else.

So Why Do New York and California Show Up So Often?

The most honest answer is the least dramatic one. More tickets sold means more chances for a state's name to end up in the winner's column, purely as a matter of volume. A lottery drawing does not know or care where a ticket was bought. It only knows how many valid combinations were in play that night, and more tickets sold in a given state simply means more of those combinations belonged to that state.

Population explains part of it. According to Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates, New York had 20,002,427 residents as of July 1, 2025. California's population for the same period came in at 39,355,309 residents, the largest of any state. Illinois, by comparison, had roughly 12.7 million people. On population alone, you would expect California and New York to out-win a smaller state like Illinois simply because more residents are buying tickets in the first place.

But population is not the whole story, and this is where it gets interesting.

The Sales Numbers Tell a More Honest Story Than Population Does

If population were the only factor, California's win totals should dwarf New York's, since California has roughly twice as many people. It does not. New York actually leads California in both total jackpot wins and total lottery sales.

New York's state lottery, including video lottery terminals, generated more than $10.2 billion in combined sales in fiscal year 2025, the most of any state lottery in the country. California came in lower, at roughly $8.9 billion in traditional game sales for the same fiscal year. Illinois sold $3.76 billion in tickets in fiscal year 2025, its second-highest sales year on record.

Run the simple per-resident math on those numbers and something surprising shows up. New York's sales work out to roughly $500 for every resident. Illinois comes in at roughly $296 per resident. California, despite being the most populous state in the country and despite showing up constantly in Mega Millions history, works out to roughly $231 per resident, the lowest of the three.

In other words, Illinois residents are not playing less per person than Californians. If anything, they are playing a bit more. California's raw win count is driven almost entirely by having nearly forty million people, not by Californians being unusually enthusiastic lottery players. New York, on the other hand, leads on both population-adjusted spending and raw volume, which is a big part of why it tops the Mega Millions win list.

None of this is unique to these three states. Nationally, Massachusetts residents spent about $856 per capita on lottery tickets in 2024, more than $250 above any other state, while North Dakota residents spent just $48 per capita, the least in the country. Spending habits vary enormously by state and region, for reasons that have nothing to do with any state being luckier.

The Math That Never Changes, No Matter Where You Buy the Ticket

Here is the part I want to say as plainly as I can. Your physical location does not change your odds on a single ticket. Powerball's jackpot odds are calculated from a 5-from-69 white ball pool combined with a 1-from-26 red Powerball pool, landing at 1 in 292,201,338, and that number is identical whether the ticket was bought in Springfield, Illinois or Sacramento, California. Mega Millions changed its odds in April 2025 when it dropped the Mega Ball pool from 25 numbers to 24, moving jackpot odds to 1 in 290,472,336, but again, that figure applies everywhere the game is sold. It has nothing to do with geography.

Think of it like a raffle with a few hundred million tickets in the drum. If one state buys forty million of those tickets and another state buys four million, the state that bought more will, over time, statistically pull more winning tickets out of the drum simply because it holds more tickets. That does not mean any individual ticket from the bigger state had better odds. Each ticket, wherever it was bought, still had exactly the same one-in-hundreds-of-millions chance as every other ticket in the drum.

This is the same principle behind why Indiana leads Powerball. Indiana was one of the game's original states back in 1992, giving it decades of continuous ticket sales, and it has maintained strong participation relative to its size ever since. Long-running participation plus steady sales adds up over more than three decades of drawings. It is not a sign that Powerball favors Indiana. It is a sign that Indiana has bought a lot of tickets over a long period of time.

What This Actually Means If You Play in Illinois

If you live in Illinois, or any state that has not produced a marquee list of jackpot winners, the honest takeaway is that your ticket is not disadvantaged. The math behind your ticket is exactly the same as the math behind a ticket bought anywhere else in the country. Illinois' own August 2026 win is proof of that in the most direct way possible.

What this also means is that buying more tickets specifically to "catch up" to New York or California is not a real strategy. It does not change the odds on any individual ticket, and it just means spending more money chasing a number that does not move. If a state's win count feels unlucky, that is a description of the past, not a prediction about your next ticket.

This is really the same lesson behind why most jackpot winners turn out to have used Quick Pick rather than self-selected numbers. That mostly reflects how many players use Quick Pick in the first place, not that Quick Pick carries any real advantage. Volume creates patterns that look meaningful from a distance. The math underneath those patterns stays exactly the same for every single ticket, whether it is a Quick Pick or a set built around a date that matters to you.

I've written before about why hot and cold number tracking does not actually change your odds, and this is really the same idea applied to geography instead of number frequency. A pattern in the historical data is not the same thing as an edge on your next ticket.

Where LottoMuse Fits Into This

None of this changes what LottoMuse is built to do. Wherever you live, whichever game you play, I built LottoMuse to turn something meaningful in your life into a valid, game-structured lottery number set, with an honest explanation for why each number belongs. It will not move you from Illinois odds to New York odds, because there is no such thing. What it can do is give you a set you actually feel connected to, instead of a random Quick Pick with no story behind it at all.

You cannot control the odds. You cannot control how many other people in your state bought a ticket this week either. What you can control is whether the numbers on your ticket mean something to you.

Responsible Play

Lottery outcomes are random, no matter which state you live in, and no amount of ticket volume, timing, or geography changes that. Set a budget you are genuinely comfortable losing, treat every ticket as entertainment rather than a plan, and never spend more chasing a state's win count than you would spend on any other form of fun. If lottery play stops feeling fun for you or someone you care about, the National Council on Problem Gambling offers free, confidential support.

FAQ

Does buying a ticket in New York or California give me better odds than buying one in Illinois? No. Powerball and Mega Millions odds are fixed by the size of each game's number pool and apply identically to every ticket sold in every participating state.

Why does Indiana lead Powerball if it's not one of the biggest states? Indiana was one of Powerball's original states back in 1992, which means decades of steady ticket sales relative to its population. Longevity and consistent participation add up over time, even in a smaller state.

Why do New York and California lead Mega Millions specifically? Largely sales volume. New York generates the most total lottery sales of any state, and California's huge population produces a large raw number of tickets, even though its per-resident spending is actually lower than Illinois' or New York's.

Is Illinois unlucky? No. Illinois ranks seventh all-time for Mega Millions jackpots and just produced a $1.04 billion Powerball jackpot winner on August 12, 2026. The gap most people notice is really just a gap in ticket volume between Illinois and the two or three highest-selling states, not a sign that the odds work differently there.

Should I buy tickets in a different state because it has won more often? There is no mathematical reason to. Your odds on a single ticket are the same everywhere the game is sold. Play where it's convenient and legal for you, and treat any state's win history as a description of past ticket volume, not a forecast.

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