It's okay
By Kate Northrop
ARLINGTON, Va. — A Virginia man didn't really have anything enthusiastic to say about winning a lottery prize of $1,000 a week for life in Cash4Life.
A Virginia lottery player had a rather subdued reaction to beating tremendously difficult odds to win $1,000 a week for the rest of his life.
Felipe Arriaza, of Alexandria, won the Cash4Life second prize of $1,000 a week, which is accomplished by beating the 1 in 7,282,016 odds of matching the first five numbers in a drawing.
The ticket he purchased at the 7-Eleven on North Fairfax Drive in Arlington held the winning regular numbers in the Dec. 4 drawing — 5, 12, 14, 24, and 33 — but just missed the Cash Ball 2. He chose his numbers by using a combination of important family birthdays and ages.
When he visited the Virginia Lottery to claim his prize, no doubt the Lottery was expecting to see the usual ecstatic winner giddy at the prospects of claiming a life-changing sum of money. Perhaps they were also anticipating a retelling of the exciting moment he found out he won.
Instead, the Lottery found out that, upon being told his Cash4Life ticket was a big winner, Arriaza simply said, "That's good."
Despite the winner's stoic response, his face says it all. While posing with a massive check for his second-tier Cash4Life prize, he was faced with a decision: take the $1,000 a week for life, or collect the prize as the cash option. Arriaza chose the latter and claimed a $1 million lump sum.
The Alexandria resident told the Lottery that he plans on using the winnings to take care of his family.
Cash4Life is played by selecting five numbers from a pool of 1 to 60 as well as one Cash Ball number ranging from 1 to 4. Matching all six numbers will win a player $1,000 a day for life, while matching the first five numbers without the Cash Ball number will win the second-tier prize of $1,000 a week for life. The game offers other prizes of one-time payments ranging from $2 to $2,500.
Drawings are conducted every night at 9:00 pm EST in New Jersey via mechanical ball drawing machines. Tickets cost $2 each.
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Congrats Felipe! Just in time for Christmas! No need to say much. Your smile says it all.
I hate to guess his age but that game is only for younger players. He never should have played it since he looks well over 55. Of course most savvy lottery players are that age or older and know enough to avoid this game which does have very bad odds compared to others with their prize structure.
Perhaps the shock of winning caused him to be nonchalant...or the dreaded picture plastered all over the place.
Glad the last sentence said still a mechanical ball drawing.
What about Lucky for Life out of Connecticut? Is it an RNG game now?
Lucky for Life is now MUSL drawn on RNG in Iowa. I believe they changed from Connecticut RNGs to Iowa RNGs around September this year. There really wasn't a big announcement.
How do you figure? If I was 18 I wouldn't play considering 60 to 70 years of inflation.
If I was 55 to 65 I would play considering 20 to 30 years of inflation.
You really have to take into consideration all the games available in your area. Maybe in some jurisdictions your statement makes sense but not in every one.
That would be easy for me to win 1000.00 for life .You see I have system that lets me win a lot and ime not sharing my secret !
Why doesn't anyone take the weekly portion of the prize? Why do people take the lump sum? No one ever sees that the lump sum will go faster than the installments over the course of their lives...
He won $1 million--what does his age have to do with it?
I don't think most people understand how an annuity works. It is believed that if the state goes bankrupt then their lottery annuity will disappear. Also, no matter how old a lottery winner is, there is NO guarantee the person will live long enough to collect all the years of the annuity which ends in 20 years. Also a lottery winner only gets their annuity payment once a year. Most people want to regulate their own money instead of having it dished out yearly.
That's good.
I agree and he took the lump sum. Kind of ridiculous to tell players to analyze games in terms of their own ages. Lol
I play this game now and then and it has far better odds than pb or mm.
I am confusing this game with Lucky for Life. He won Cash 4 Life. Fixed payout game both of them. Avoid. The Virginia game he won the odds were 7.2 to 1 million whereas the Cash For Life game the odds for the same hit are 1.8 million to 1 but only half the prize. Makes the Virginia one lame.
Good for you. But I haven't read of anyone asking you for your secret.
I believe this happened in Va as well.....
There was a story a few years ago where someone asked for a MM or PB ticket and by mistake the clerk hit the wrong button and printed a Cash4Life ticket.
The customer didn't want the mistake ticket and the clerk paid for it.
That night the mistake ticket won that clerk $7,000,000 since the ticket ended up winning the grand prize and he took cash value instead of the annuity.