Tennessee Lottery: Tennessee Lottery to finally reveal Lotto 5 jackpots
The Tennessee Lottery announced that it will remove some of the mystery from its Lotto 5 computerized game by giving players an estimated jackpot before each of the tri-weekly drawings.
Prior to estimating the jackpot, players only knew the rollover amount from the previous drawing if there was no winner. At the games launch, it was announced that the top prize would range from the tens of thousands to more than one-hundred thousand dollars.
After just over four months of playing Lotto 5, players have told us they want to know what they are playing for, said Rebecca Paul, CEO and President of the Tennessee Lottery. In order to maximize dollars for education, we will continue to respond to players requests, and this is just one example.
There have been 15 jackpot winners since Lotto 5 tickets went on sale Aug. 29, 2004. The top prizes have ranged from $54,852 to $670,823.
The new announcements begin with Wednesday nights drawing, which has an estimated jackpot of $170,000. If no player matches five of the five numbers drawn, the estimated jackpot for Fridays drawing is $215,000. If there are any winning tickets sold that match five of the five numbers, the estimated top prize for Friday will be $40,000.
In Lotto, for $1 per play, players select five numbers from 1 to 39. If 3, 4 or 5 of those numbers are drawn in any order, the player wins. If there is no top-prize winner, the cash for that prize is added to the top prize for the next drawing. Prize amounts are pari-mutuel, which means all winners share an equal portion of the winnings in each prize category. Overall odds of winning are 1 in 100.
Drawings are held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights at 10:34 p.m. CST and can be seen on the Lotterys TV network partners throughout the state.