Mega Millions is debuting its long-awaited revamped game featuring larger prizes and improved odds — but it’ll cost you a few more dollars for a chance at a potentially billion-dollar dream.

The first drawing under the updated prize structure will start on Tuesday, April 8, at 11 p.m. Eastern. The upgraded Mega Millions game looks to attract a broader audience by enhancing non-jackpot prizes and increasing players’ chances of winning.

New York is one of 45 states nationwide that participate in Mega Millions. The game has biweekly drawings, and jackpot winners can win tens of millions of dollars to over a billion dollars. 

One of the biggest changes includes increasing the cost of a Mega Millions ticket from $2 to $5, though officials believe the potential for higher rewards justifies the increase. 

Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said the new system promises a better experience overall and better value at every play.

“Beyond big jackpots, players told us they want bigger non-jackpot prizes, and that’s exactly what this new game delivers,” he said in a statement.

According to Johnston, players who previously won $2 in the old game will now take home $10, $15, $20, $25, or $50. Additionally, those who had won $500 will now receive prizes ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.

Other changes include: 

– The overall odds of winning any prize will improve from 1 in 24 to 1 in 23. Odds for winning the jackpot will also see a beneficial shift, dropping from an astronomical 1 in 302,575,350 to a slightly less astronomical 1 in 290,472,336.
– The new game will reset the jackpot to a minimum of $50 million, compared to the previous $20 million.
-With estimated average jackpots exceeding $800 million, players can expect more frequent and substantial jackpot amounts.
-Non-jackpot wins will automatically multiply their base prize by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, or 10X, with prizes ranging from $10 to $10 million.

Due to the new gaming setup, the existing “Megaplier” and “Just the Jackpot” features will be replaced with the new built-in multiplier.

If the jackpot remains unclaimed after April 4, it will roll over into the new game format, allowing the prize to continue growing with ticket sales.

Drawings are broadcast Tuesday and Friday nights. For more information, visit the Mega Millions website or the New York Lottery at nylottery.ny.gov.

In the midst of New York City’s worst housing crisis in half a century, a coalition of tenant organizations, local residents , and elected officials gathered in Sunset Park on April 6, demanding a rent freeze for the next four years. 

City Council Member Alexa Avilés, Assembly Member and Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani, and Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes joined the rally, which was organized by CAAAV Voice and co-sponsored by New York State Tenant Bloc.

They denounced the rent hikes that occurred under Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and who, they say, approved “egregious” rent hikes of 9% on millions of rent-stabilized tenants. Those hikes, they said, disproportionately affected Sunset Park residents.

Avilés, who is running for re-election to City Council in District 38, which includes Sunset Park, told Brooklyn Paper that rising rents have severely impacted her constituents, including seniors and families forced to share living spaces.  

‘The rents just keep going up’ 

“High rents, consistently, is one of the main issues we have faced,” she said. “Seniors who can’t afford to stay in the neighborhood, people who are tripling up in rooms because they just cannot afford it. The rents just keep going up.”

In addition to rising rents — Avilés has seen rent increases of 100% — tenants deal with landlord intimidation, where landlords either don’t make necessary repairs, refuse to accept rent vouchers, or send out official-looking eviction notices.

“[Landlords] send letters that look official but that aren’t actually from lawyers. People sometimes will move out out of fear because they don’t know the formal language. So they’ll come with a letter and say, ‘My landlord says I have to leave,’” said Avilés, who stood with tenant organizers when they disrupted the a rent hike vote by the Rent Guidelines Board in 2023.

The city’s vacancy rate hit a record-low 1.4% in 2023, according to a survey by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and have remained low since them — while rents are at an all-time high, pushing low to middle-income renters out of their homes. According to a report published by the New York City Comptroller’s Office in 2024, 69% of New York City dwellers are renters. Most of them are rent-burdened, with nearly 30% of low-income renters severely rent-burdened — meaning they spend more than 50% of their pre-tax income on rent.

Sunset Park is home to mostly working-class and low-income residents and has large Chinese and Hispanic populations. According to the NYU Furman Center, median gross rent in Sunset Park was $1,940 in 2022 — though Rental Market Trends noted monthly rents as high as $3,000 in 2025. Per the Furman Center, in 2022, 25.9% of renter households in Sunset Park were severely rent-burdened, spending more than 50% of household income on rent.

Just 61.4% of rental units in the area were affordable at 80% the Area Median Income, which is considered low-income in New York City. Almost half of residents in Brooklyn Community District 7, which includes Sunset park and Windsor Terrace were earning 80% AMI or less in 2021, according to city data, and roughly one-quarter were earning less than 30% AMI. 

Mamdani, who has made “Freeze the Rent” part of his election campaign, pointed out that, according to a March 2025 report by the Rent Guidelines Board, landlords made a profit of roughly 12% across the city after operating costs in 2022 and 2023. 

“Let’s be very clear: landlords are doing just fine,” Mamdani told the crowd of about 150 tenants. “We’re saying that we see these profits happening at the same time as the struggles of tenants.”

Rent hikes approved by Adams’ administration —which tenant advocates fear would likely continue should former governor and Democratic mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo win the race — have pushed renters to the brink and forced them out of their homes, Mamdani said. 

“We will choose to keep the working class in New York City, and we will choose to keep the dignity of people who have built this city, who keep this city running over the profits of those who are already doing just fine,” he said.

Pointing to a sign that read, “Let’s Freeze the Rent and Melt the I.C.E.,” Mamdani also called out the deportation of immigrants.

“[ICE] are robbing New Yorkers of the confidence that they can leave their home and not be disappeared, not be dragged, not be detained,” Mamdani said. “We must remember that a rent increase robs those same New Yorkers of that same stability because whether you raise the rent or you detain a New Yorker, you deprive them of their ability to stay a New Yorker.”

Esther Jensen, a spokesperson for the Cuomo campaign, pointed to Governor Cuomo’s record as HUD Secretary and his plan to address the housing crisis, which includes building more housing across all income levels, protecting renters, and keeping families in their homes, among others.

“The city is in crisis, a crisis of affordability and of quality of life, and Governor Cuomo is the only candidate with the proven experience to lead the city forward. From serving as HUD Secretary under the Clinton Administration to fighting homelessness and building affordable housing units throughout New York City and the country, New Yorkers know he is the only qualified candidate with an actual record of delivering results. The field of far-left democratic socialists are attacking his record because they don’t have one of their own,” the statement reads.

Adams’ office did not immediately provide comment. 

Pols push back on the real estate lobby 

Mitaynes, whose district includes Sunset Park, grew up on 47th Street and Seventh Avenue in a 35-unit rent-stabilized building. In 2006, the building was sold, and Mitaynes was evicted.

The first immigrant Indigenous Peruvian in the New York State Legislature said that during that time, she learned about the power the real estate lobby holds.

“At a time when tenants were under attack, our elected officials continued to ignore the issue and the problem, and it’s because they believe that you cannot run on tenant issues,” Mitaynes said.

Understanding the trauma evicted tenants experience, she explained it was essential to know which politicians were beholden to the real estate lobby.

“It’s important to understand [the real estate lobby’s] strong influence in politics, and why it’s important for all of us to get involved, to understand who’s running for what position, and, most importantly, where their money is coming from,” said Mitaynes, who defeated 26-year incumbent Assembly Member Félix Ortiz in 2020, on small donations from her community.

Mayor Eric Adams’ decision last week to run as an independent rather than duke it out in a crowded Democratic primary may have revived his re-election effort — but his bid to secure another four years in City Hall still faces long odds.

After weeks of speculation, Adams revealed last Thursday that he will no longer seek the Democratic nomination and instead attempt to win another term as an independent in the November general election. His announcement came less than 24 hours after a federal judge threw out his five-count corruption indictment with prejudice, meaning the Justice Department cannot resurrect the charges.

However, while Federal District Judge Dale Ho dismissed Adams’ case, his ruling served as a searing indictment of Trump’s DOJ over its rationale for dropping the charges. He also appeared to agree with allegations that Adams’ attorneys exchanged his cooperation with Trump’s immigration crackdown for scuttling his case.

The mayor insists that while he is no longer running in the June 24 primary, he remains a Democrat. During a Friday morning interview on Pix11, Adams said he was ready to jump into the contentious Democratic showdown, but was delayed by how long it took for Judge Ho to drop his case.

Adams also claimed that the move was not motivated by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s significant lead in the polls and his recent fundraising struggles.

“I’m still a Democrat. I will be running on an independent line, and no, it had nothing to do with polling,” Adams said. “It is about getting my message out and continuing the work that we have accomplished.”

New energy, same challenges

Political scientist John Mollenkopf said Adams’ independent run gave the incumbent mayor a chance at re-election he no longer had in the Democratic primary.

“It gives his campaign new life because I think there was zero life in running in the Democratic primary,” Mollenkopf said.

But the move is far from a sure bet, according to Mollenkopf and other political observers.

Joseph Viteritti, a Hunter College public policy professor, said Adams is giving himself some breathing room to bounce back from his record-low poll numbers and struggles to raise campaign cash. Nonetheless, his path to a second term remains unclear.

“He gives himself three more months to prepare, which he needs to do because he hasn’t been campaigning very much and hasn’t raised very much money,” Viteritti said. “It’s still an uphill fight for him, because his approval ratings are at record lows and they haven’t moved.”

An Emerson College/Pix11/The Hill poll released late last month found that Adams would lose a hypothetical four-way general election matchup. The matchup included former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as the Democratic nominee, Curtis Sliwa on the GOP line, and attorney Jim Walden as another independent. The survey showed Cuomo winning with 43% of the vote and Adams coming in third behind Sliwa with 11%.

A separate poll of Democratic primary voters last month by The Honan Group found that only 10% of those surveyed said they would be open to supporting an Adams independent run.

Adams, the Cuomo spoiler?

Complicating matters even further for Adams and the rest of a prospective general election field is the New York Working Families Party’s revelation that it would likely run its own candidate in November rather than backing Cuomo if he wins the primary.

In that scenario, Mollenkopf said, Adams probably still would not win — but could stand in the way of Cuomo coming out on top.

“That would make for a super interesting general election because Cuomo and Adams would be competing for the same votes and I don’t think Cuomo can will without the Black community,” Mollenkopf said. “I still don’t think that Adams would win in a situation like that, but he would be more competitive in that situation than he would be in a Democratic primary.”

Viteritti said the mayor may also be trying to appeal to Republican voters with his independent bid, which was evident by him promoting Trump FBI Director Kash Patel’s book soon after Ho dismissed his indictment.

Aligning oneself with Trump in New York City, however, may not be a winning strategy, he said.

“He seems to be attaching his future to Donald Trump, which I don’t think is a good bet in New York, especially,” Viteritti said. “I think lots of people are going to have problems supporting a Trump-identified candidate.”

The Lindsay method

Adams is following the path of late former Mayor John Lindsay, who successfully won re-election as an independent in 1969 after losing the Republican primary. Lindsay ran in the general election on the Liberal Party line, a full-fledged party that supported his campaign. 

Like Lindsay, Adams is an incumbent who decided to run as an independent after losing popularity, Viteritti said. But Lindsay was in a stronger position than Adams is now.

“Even though a lot of people were dissatisfied with the way Lindsay was moving the city in a left direction, I don’t think he has the popularity issues that Adams has,” Viteritti said. “Formally, he’s gotten the legal issues behind them, but from a public relations perspective, those issues will continue to haunt him.”