Editorial standards
Every figure on this site traces to an official game site, a government agency or a named publication, dated when it was checked. The arithmetic behind the odds is shown, not just asserted. When sources disagree, we say so and name both. When we cannot verify something, we say that too, instead of guessing, and every correction gets a new checked date.
Every figure is sourced, not remembered
Nothing on this site starts from memory or from what "everyone knows" about the lottery. Every odds figure, prize amount, tax rate and helpline number comes from one of two files that sit behind every page: a verified-facts file for the games and taxes, checked against powerball.com, megamillions.com, the IRS, and named state lottery sites, and a separate references file for the mathematics, the enforcement record and the responsible-play material, sourced to named studies, agencies and publications. If a number is not in one of those two files, it does not go on the page. That is a hard rule, not a guideline, and it applies to every writer who works on this site.
In practice that means a figure like Powerball's jackpot odds is never typed out from recollection on a new page. It is pulled from the same verified source every other page pulls it from, so a reader who checks two different pages against each other will always find the same number, dated the same way.
The arithmetic is shown, not asserted
Anywhere this site states an odds figure, it also shows the counting that produces it, rather than asking a reader to trust a printed number. Powerball's jackpot odds, 1 in 292,201,338, come from C(69,5) x 26, worked step by step on how lottery odds are calculated, and the result matches the figure the game itself publishes. Mega Millions's 1 in 290,472,336 is derived the same way from the current 70-number, 24-Mega-Ball matrix.
That is deliberate. A figure that only agrees with the official chart, with no visible working, is asking for trust the same way a "trust us" product does. Showing the division by 120 and the multiplication by the bonus-ball count lets a reader check the site's own homework, not just take a second unexplained number on faith.
Every check is dated
Every page on this site carries the date its figures were last checked, currently 2026-09-24. That date is not decorative. Both national games have changed their rules within recent memory, Mega Millions most recently on April 8, 2025, when the price, the multiplier and the Mega Ball pool all changed at once, and a page with an undated, unchanging number looks identical whether it was checked yesterday or three years ago.
When a figure is re-checked, whether because a game changed its rules, a tax bracket moved, or a reader flagged something, the page's checked date moves with it. A stale, silently unchanged date next to a number that has actually moved on is, in our view, worse than admitting the page needs a look.
What we do when sources disagree
Mega Millions's own site describes its overall odds of winning any prize as "approximately 1 in 23." The Delaware Lottery's published figure for the same thing is 1 in 23.07. Both are official sources for the same number, and they do not say exactly the same thing.
When that happens, we do not quietly pick the rounder-sounding figure and move on. We show both, name both sources, and let a reader see the small disagreement rather than hiding it behind a single confident-looking number.
A second example, from a harder topic
The same approach applies to a bigger disagreement on staying anonymous by state. One secondary source, dated August 2026, reports Texas as having no anonymity threshold at all and Virginia's at $10 million. The actual Texas regulation, checked directly against 16 Tex. Admin. Code Sec. 401.324, sets Texas at $1,000,000 or more, and Virginia's reported threshold has apparently since changed too. That page names the conflict outright, states which figure was checked against an official regulation and which was only reported, and tells readers to confirm the current rule with their own state lottery before relying on either one. Papering over a conflict like that would be easier to write and worse to read.
What we do when we cannot verify something
Just as important as what we state is what we do not. When a figure could not be confirmed against something we trust, we say so by name, in the page it affects, instead of filling the gap with a plausible-sounding guess. Four real examples from the current site:
- The exact current-year IRS reporting threshold for issuing Form W-2G on lottery winnings. The IRS states the figure is inflation-adjusted annually but we could not independently retrieve this year's exact number, which is distinct from the $5,000 federal withholding threshold that is verified.
- A single authoritative percentage for jackpot cash value as a share of the annuity. It genuinely varies by drawing and interest rates, so the site records one dated real example (about 46.3%) instead of a general rule that does not exist.
- The current, complete list of states offering Powerball's Double Play add-on. It is reported historically as roughly 14 states plus Puerto Rico, but that list was not re-confirmed against an official source for this year, so we say that plainly rather than printing a possibly stale list as current fact.
- A single official, government-published, state-by-state list of lottery-winner-anonymity rules. Only Texas was checked against the actual regulation; the rest is reported from one secondary source and labeled that way.
The same discipline applies to the enforcement record behind our claim checks. We could not find a specific, named FTC or state Attorney General action against a vendor of lottery-prediction software or a paid "system" claiming to improve odds of winning. What is verified, and cited by name, is enforcement against advance-fee and fake-prize lottery fraud, plus general FTC rulemaking on unsubstantiated earnings claims. We state that distinction directly on prediction software claims rather than implying an enforcement action exists that does not.
How corrections are handled
Corrections are not a special, hidden process. A reader flags something through contact, we check it against the same class of official source everything else on the site uses, a game site, a state lottery, the IRS, or a named study or agency, and if the correction holds up, we fix the page and move its checked date forward to the day we fixed it. We do not edit a figure quietly and leave the old date in place, because that would let a wrong number look older, and more settled, than it actually was.
If a correction is significant enough to change a conclusion, not just a decimal, the page says so in the body text itself rather than only in a date at the bottom. A reader who read the page before the fix should not need to guess what changed.
Why we don't name specific products
One more rule, stated plainly because it shapes several pages on this site: we do not name or link the specific products we are criticizing. When a page describes the vocabulary a lottery-prediction product tends to use, phrases like "verified mapping" or "real-time patterns," it describes the pattern of language across the category, not a named company or a specific piece of software.
That is not squeamishness. Naming a specific product turns a page about a category of claim into a page about one company, invites a dispute about that one company's specific wording instead of the underlying mathematics, and hands that product a link and a mention it would not otherwise have gotten from an independent site. The argument on this site is with the mathematics behind a category of claim, not with any single seller of it, and keeping products unnamed keeps the argument where it belongs.
What this adds up to
None of this makes the site infallible, and it is not meant to. It makes the site's mistakes findable and fixable: every figure traces to a source a reader can check for themselves, every page says when it was last checked, and every gap in what we know is named instead of quietly filled in. That is the whole method. More on who runs this site and why is on about this site, and every source used across the whole site is listed on the home page and on the guides hub.
Editorial standards: common questions
Where does every figure on this site come from?
An official game site, a state lottery, the IRS, or a named academic or agency source, tracked in two files behind every page. A figure that is not in one of those files does not get published.
Is the arithmetic behind the odds shown or just stated?
Shown. Every odds figure on this site is derived step by step from the counting that produces it, and the result is checked against the figure the game itself publishes.
What happens when two official sources disagree?
We name both and show both, rather than quietly picking one. Mega Millions's own overall-odds figure and Delaware Lottery's published figure for the same statistic differ slightly, and the relevant page says so.
What do you do when you can't verify something?
We name the gap directly on the page it affects, such as the unverified current IRS W-2G reporting threshold, instead of filling it with a plausible guess.
Is there a verified FTC case against lottery-prediction software?
No, and we say so specifically. Verified enforcement in this space targets advance-fee and fake-prize fraud, not lottery-prediction-software vendors, which is a real and important distinction.
How do corrections get handled?
A reader flags it through contact, we check it against an official source, fix the page if the correction holds up, and move the page's checked date forward to the day of the fix.
Why doesn't this site name the products it criticizes?
Naming one company turns a page about a category of claim into a dispute about that company's wording, and hands it a link it would not otherwise get. The argument is with the mathematics, not the seller.
How often are the figures on this site re-checked?
Whenever a game changes its rules, a tax figure changes, or a reader flags something worth checking, not on a fixed schedule. Every page's checked date reflects the last time that happened.
The odds do not move, so check them yourself
Powerball is 1 in 292,201,338 and Mega Millions is 1 in 290,472,336 for one play. Every figure on this site is dated, sourced and shown with its arithmetic, and we sell nothing that could change any of it.