NY Sweet Million being canceled to make room
By Todd Northrop
The New York Gaming Commission on Tuesday agreed to roll out a new multi-state lottery game on June 13 that would pay the top winner $1,000 a day for life.
The lotto game is called Cash For Life and it will replace the under performing Sweet Million jackpot game.
Commission members voted to bring in the new lottery offering at a meeting on Tuesday in New York City. The new game would include New Jersey players, and other states might join in after this year. Interested states include Virginia and Ohio.
"Sweet Million was underperforming and Cash 4 Life is a multi-state game that appears to be doing well and New York wanted to take part in it," said Lee Park, a spokesman for the state Gaming Commission. [Editor's note: the spokesman may have been referring to the multi-state Lucky for Life game played in New England states that uses a similar but different game format.]
Cash 4 Life tickets will be available for sale at $2 each starting Friday, June 13th. Drawings will take place on Mondays and Thursdays.
To play the game, a player will select five numbers between 1 and 60, and one "Cash Ball" number between 1 and 4. The player wins the top prize of $1,000 per day for life by matching all five numbers plus the Cash Ball.
Several additional prizes are available by matching other quantities of numbers, with or without the Cash Ball. (See prize chart below.)
Lottery officials expect the new game to provide up to $9 million more in education aid than the $16.6 million produced last year by Sweet Million.
Drawings will be on Mondays and Thursdays starting June 16.
Prizes and odds
There are nine prize levels in the Cash 4 Life game.
| Match | Prize | Odds |
| 5 numbers + Cash Ball | $1,000/day for life | 1 in 21,846,048 |
| 5 numbers | $52,000/year for life | 1 in 7,282,016 |
| 4 numbers + Cash Ball | $2,500 | 1 in 79,440 |
| 4 numbers | $500 | 1 in 26,480 |
| 3 numbers + Cash Ball | $100 | 1 in 1,471 |
| 3 numbers | $25 | 1 in 490 |
| 2 numbers + Cash Ball | $10 | 1 in 83 |
| 2 numbers | $4 | 1 in 28 |
| 1 number + Cash Ball | $2 | 1 in 13 |
The overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 8.
Nice going NJ/NY. $1,000 a day for life, you will never go broke unless you are a real dumba$$. The only problem is that after taxes, it won't be what it's cracked up to be. $1,000 a day for life after taxes, now that's more like it.
They need the tax money!
Looks as if these game may proof to be worth a $4 investment twice a week. I love the prizes.
Yes, they want or need the tax money. [ BIGGER PICTURE] IT will provide up to $9,000,000 [more] to educate your children !!!!!!!! This way taxes may not be raised on the home owner's.
5/28/14 Wed. 10:20 A.M.
NY has an under performing lottery game? That's hard to believe but they know what NY Sweet Million brought into their state coffers.
What makes them think a new game will be anymore successful, except for the fact that N.J. players seem to love big games with the theme of Cash 4 Life prizes.
Good Luck to N.Y. but I'm not paying $2.00 per ticket. Stopped buying Power Ball tickets for the same reason. But that's just me.
It sounds like an Insurance. They collect monies from many and a few wins.
$4 a week doesn't sound like much, but to stay in my $19 a week budget I'd have to drop something.
Now "lemmesee"
$7...JC5
$2...pic6
$4...MM w/
$6...PB w/
I'm already spending my PB and MM $ on NJ pic6 cause the JP is 17Mil.
I don't miss playing the MM as much as I thought I would so.....maybe....
last thing I want to do is bump up my budget, that's how it got up to $19 a week, by adding games.
TG we finally got something new but it's going to be tough with 60 numbers. Glad to see they added the second place prize also which is also new in Lucky for life. The SM would of done better if the lower payouts were higher.
You might as well play because the State has other ways to get the $2 out of your pocket.
Yeah, $2 per line is tough on the lottery budget.
Since there are 60 balls in play, hitting a 5/5 match (2nd prize) is harder with this game than winning Powerball's 5/5 2nd prize.
im not greedy, ill be happy with $1k a week for life. i cold live like a millionaire!
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So how much was the state winning with this game?
I am suprised we dont have any sales data here. Also no word I think on official last draw.
They may have not been pulling in a ton of cash, but I dont think they made but one or two millionaires in a three years time.
(And I haven't been able to be one yet)
I am not sure if I am up to tracking a new game. I am really peeved all my recent SM charts are gonna have to be retired.
I guess the Sweet Million was not that sweet, They never should have pari-muteled into five jackpots, they were really covering their asses like paranoic freaks there.
At most it should have been three jackpots, and upped the lower tier prizes, that would have enticed more people.
As for paying two bucks a pop? I dont know, I am thinking of sending my money to PA, and play their cash five or the treasure hunt, or sending to Virgina to play their cash five.
I guess I will never trust a cute kitten or puppy again.
Someone should do a parody commercial of the death of sweet million. It should include a mass murderer with a very sharp medieval style axe, and a blowtorch on his back, for decapitating kittens, flaying puppies, broiling guinea pigs, mangling bunnies, and for roasting ducklings inside out.
The Horror.
9 million more for education? 16 million was not enough? We shall see.
These kids better not become FB and Twitter twits.
I hate to be bitter, but I hope they live to regret this dearly.
I'm glad New York didn't join New England's Lucky for Life now that I've learned about Cash for Life.
New England L4L carries 41 million to 1 odds to win $7,000 a week for life. Cash for Life has odds 20 million to 1 LOWER for the exact same prize.
Also L4L has a second place prize of $25,000 per year for life. The new game in New York pays $52,000 per year for life for second place, but New England's odds to win 2nd place are far lower than Cash for Life. Don't know why that would be, but from what I've read so far, it seems to be the case.
G5, gauging from your results in Dead Milly, I think all you might get is a three bagger.
$600,000 / $1,000 per day = 600 days
$600/365= 1.6 years of equivalent richness.
$600,000/52,000 per year = 11.53 yrs
If hardly anybody could win SM at 1:4,000,000 odds, how do they expect ANYBODY to win at quadruple the odds?
The odds of the 2nd tier prize is 1:7,000,000.
The immediate payout of 600,000 in one day IF you win SM, now will be replaced with a eleven year wait to get the same amount of money IF you win the new game.
If NY's lottery tentacles could reach the West Coast l would be all for this game IF only California could rid itself of that Infernal game called " Daily Derby" and replace it with this one.
Yes, Yes, Yes LB.. what you say is all true
But all I wuz sayin' is Cash For Life is a better game than New England's L4L. I didnt say I wuz gonna play the dadgum thang!!!
NO!
They need the money for lavish public employee pensions!
Odd of 1 in 21,846,048, $2 a ticket, and people will be lining up to play it!
The lotteries shouldn't be taxed at all!
I guess I should correct my incorrect third grade math as I did not take account into tax theft for the multistate game.
600,000/600.000 per day = 1000 days
1000 days / 365 days = 2.7 years of equivalent richness.
600,000/32,000 per year = 18 .75 years WAITING for the same equivalent of money!!!!!!
5 out of 60? That is worse than Euromillions! I don't play Euromillions.
Yea, I don't know if this is better or worse.... then SM... seems EVERY time they replace or change a game they make it harder to win.
But the payouts a better...
I'm not surprised. People line up to play PowerBall for 2 bucks a pop too.
While it's true this new game doesn't have a multi-million dollar top prize, I'd spend two bucks on it before I spend that same two bucks on PowerBall.
Hell, you cant win it at 21 million to 1, so to my simple mind 175 million to 1 is even more ridiculous.
Oklahoma needs a game like this.
Because there are only 4 bonus numbers, there should be many more smaller secondary prize winners in this game than in PB. The prize for matching 5 + 0 is about the same in both games though winners in this game will have to wait 20 years.
Scratch-offs are still the most popular lottery games and probably because of the much lower overall chances of winning ratio. The ratio is listed as 1 in 8 for this games, but if a player purchases 4 tickets each with a different bonus number, one is guaranteed to win something.
Maybe now our luck will come true,with this new game for New York.Some thing tells me I,will love it.
just like i love the take 5 game. Good luck Everyone.
[If hardly anybody could win SM at 1:4,000,000 odds, how do they expect ANYBODY to win at quadruple the odds?]
Well they won't have winners if no one plays. The game wasn't good and the players showed it. Not sure how this will do but i think when people hear 1k a day, they will go on a spending frenzy.
First off let me say I think my math might have been wrong again.
I need to try again with a pen and paper and a calculator.
The reason people did not play was foolhardy. I argued with a few about it. They said "nobody wins the SM, I want to play MM or PB.
"I dont play because nobody wins." I dont really see the logic in that.
Many people said "People dont win because there is not enough coverage."
I dont really believe that either. People dont win because they dont pick the right numbers!!
The game was good. But only if you won the JP.
The whole notion of making somebody want something by twisting words is interesting.
They might of as well called the SWEET MILLION,
"The win 1000K a day for 1000 days game."
Would that increase sales? I dont know.
But when you have shapeshifters like Corn Toss mandating and dogmatically saying that the only way to win is by playing Dumb Picks, then people will not try and play more sensibly.
Now, that the Daily Derby Grand Prize was won tonight, I agree, get rid of Daily Derby.
For $2, I also wouldn't mind seeing Missouri's new $250K Triple Play be a replacement for Daily Derby.
Still not seeing anything about the new game on either lottery's web site. Given that tickets for the first draw go on sale in a little over a week, don't you think they'd want to start getting the word out?
Now why would you think they would want to go and actually to do their jobs?
They better not have any cute bunny commercials, or I am going to barf.
Btw, I think my math may have been incorrect again in one of my previous posts.
I would like to see how many players are going to win the top prizes.
I hope there are regular winners of the top prizes. I know Sweet Million was not won regularly and it appears that New England's Lucky For Life is likewise not won regularly, but I think it'll be different with Cash4Life. If anything else, we know that NY's Win For Life scratcher series is popular, so my guess is that popularity will transfer over to the draw game.
The NY Lottery web site still has nothing except for a "starting June 13" banner, but the NJ Lottery does have a page up with the rules. I found the caveats about the prize liability interesting:
Cash Options
Prize Level 1 (Jackpot) Lump Sum Cash Option:
1 Winner - Prize Level 1 (Jackpot) – Seven Million Dollars ($7,000,000)
2 to 14 Winners - Seven Million Dollars ($7,000,000), divided by the number of winning tickets sold
Prize Level 2 Lump Sum Cash Option:
One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) unless a prize liability limitation is reached (see below)
Prize Liability Limitations
Prize Level 1 (Jackpot) – For any drawing, if there is more than one (1) winning Jackpot ticket sold, then the Jackpot amount for each winning ticket shall be $7 million dollars divided by the number of winning tickets sold.
Prize Level 2 – For any drawing, the prize liability limitation is the available prize pool plus $5 million dollars.
Also, at least in New Jersey, you have to declare ahead of time whether you want the lump sum or the annuity. I hope we don't have to do that in NY (though I'll find out tomorrow when I go to buy a ticket!).
this game is not going to take off.
for one, there are have not been any decapitated bunny commercials.
No flyers, no signs.
I dont even think the cards are out.
This one is going to slip under the radar.
All the poor stupid kids are going to get dumber and poorer.
BTW, I thought the prize was $1000 dollars a day for life?
So consider I live 50 more years.
365000 x 50 = 18 million or so.
divided by 2. I guess thats sounds mathy ok.
I dont know. I think I will become a born again latter day mormon moonie and go back to church to play bingo.
Bought a Cash 4 Life on Friday. What a day to start a New Game on Friday the 13.
Who is afraid of Friday the 13th with a full moon to boot? Triskaidekaphobia ?
No flyers, no signs.
I haven't seen any physical ads, but they've added it to the sequence of ads that roll by on the screens by the terminals.
I dont even think the cards are out.
The store where I normally buy my tickets has them. I didn't make it there yesterday so I don't know if they were out on Day One, but they were out today.
BTW, I thought the prize was $1000 dollars a day for life?
It is. The info I posted pertains to the lump sum option (which, I feel, defeats the purpose of a "win for life" game, but to each his own). The jackpot is $1K a day for life or $7M lump sum. The second prize is $1K a week for life or $1M lump sum. (Both cash values work out to a little over 19 years of payments.) And both top prizes, regardless of whether the winners opt for the weekly/monthly payments or the lump sum, will be split up if there are multiple winners.
For a 2 state game with 1 in 21.8 million and 1 in 7.3 million odds the payout limitations probably aren't very important. Even if there's nothing in the prize pool they can still pay five 2nd place winners, and chances of multiple 1st place winners will be pretty low except for the occasional fluke with an odd set of winning numbers. I don't know about NJ games, but considering the performance of Sweet Millions and NY Lotto, I don't see them selling enough tickets to make it likely that there will be winners in most drawings.
What I do see is a fair chance to finally kill Lotto. If nobody won tonight the lump sum value of the next drawing will be about $5.5 million. It will cost an extra dollar, but the new game will offer the same chance of a lump sum that's $1.5 million higher, and half the chance for a 2nd place prize that's about 20 times as much. When they get a winner and the cash jackpot drops back to $1.2 million or so I'd guess that people will jump ship in a big way.
Lottery players money will transfer slowly to Cash 4Life at $2 per ticket.
13 is a lucky number in some cultures around the world.
Losing agony will be short with Cash 4Life since drawings will be held at 9PM.
It is hard to beat 2 New York Lotto combinations for $1.