Florida Lottery revamps daily game lineup

Aug 1, 2016, 11:16 am (21 comments)

Florida Lottery

By Todd Northrop

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Lottery is overhauling some of its long-running daily games, adding two new games and renaming two others.

Lottery officials announced last week that it is launching two new daily games called Pick 2 and Pick 5 Monday, Aug. 1.

Pick 2 players can select two numbers, from 0 through 9, to win a top prize of up to $50 for a Straight play, up to $25 for a Box play, or up to $37.50 for a Straight/Box play.

Pick 5 players can select five numbers, from 0 through 9, to win a top prize of up to $50,000 for a Straight play, up to $10,000 for a Box play, or up to $30,000 for a Straight/Box play.

Long-time lottery players sometimes refer to this style of Pick 5 play as "Quinto" to differentiate the game from a traditional game like Fantasy 5.

At the same time the Florida Lottery is adding the two new games, it also is changing the name of its Cash 3 and Play 4 games to Pick 3 and Pick 4.

Each Pick game costs 50 cents or $1 to play and prizes range from $50 to $50,000.

The new Pick 2 and Pick 5 games do not offer some of the wagering options of the existing Pick 3 and Pick 4 games, such as the 1-Off wagering option.

Both Cash 3 and Play 4 have been offered by the Florida Lottery for more than two decades. Cash 3 was first introduced in 1988 while Play 4 was added three years later in 1991.

State economists anticipate that the additional two games should boost overall sales by nearly $31 million in the first year.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

LiveInGreenBay's avatarLiveInGreenBay

Pick 2?  Never heard of that one before.  What next?  Pick 1?

Todd's avatarTodd

Quote: Originally posted by LiveInGreenBay on Aug 1, 2016

Pick 2?  Never heard of that one before.  What next?  Pick 1?

In addition to Florida, Pick 2 games are currently offered in Ontario, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and Québec.

And yes, with Florida's game you can actually play "Pick 1" by wagering on either the front or rear digit of the Pick 2 game.

dr65's avatardr65

PA's payout: $50 str $25 box $50/$25 str/box and $5 front/back 1.

Florida's payout for straight/boxed is $37.50  Blue Thinking 

Single, separate plays are better in that case.

helpmewin's avatarhelpmewin

Thanks Florida Lottery Always FUN to try New games.See Ya!

Ron5995

Quote: Originally posted by dr65 on Aug 1, 2016

PA's payout: $50 str $25 box $50/$25 str/box and $5 front/back 1.

Florida's payout for straight/boxed is $37.50  Blue Thinking 

Single, separate plays are better in that case.

Payouts are exactly identical on a per dollar wagered basis. Pennsylvania Lottery limits wagers to $1 only while Florida Lottery also allows 50 cents wagers.

On a related note, PA Lottery leaves millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars on the table by not allowing straight / box wagers on Pick 5. Many times I skip playing the game due to that - too much hassle, especially if buying at a retailer. Has PA Lottery addressed this limitation?

Also, Pick 4 has long been a hassle to play at retailers, though at least the newer play slips have a straight / box option. For ages, when not using a play slip, retailers have needed to resort to press Last and manually changing the wager to box. Major time waster and many mistakes. Maybe they don't anymore?

And don't get me started on how a Pick 4 50/50 quick-pick, when playing at a retailer, can result in two different numbers. Maybe, this has been fixed by now?

Furthermore, in PA, both Pick 2 and Pick 5 are $1 wagers only unlike Pick 3 and Pick 4 in which one can wager 50 cents to much as $5. For Pick 5, this is not a biggie, but for Pick 2, limiting wagers to $1 is dumb. Personally, I play Pick 2 less than I would due to the wager limitation per ticket. Playing $5 results in 5 tickets. In contrast, one can play Front 2 / Back 2 on Pick 3 for $5 on one ticket. Much less hassle, especially when playing large, such as $20+ on the same number(s).

As for Florida, looks like they get it with good wager and play options for both their new Pick 2 and Pick 5 games - they should sell well :)

amber123

When playing quads in Florida, you have to get your tickets early in the day because If you wait, it will get capped out, especially If you're playing 7777, because some people only play quads for years until it hits. I can only imagine how quick those players will cap out on quintos..ha ha..(or whatever they call it)

With a $50,000 str8 payout, I may just start play a quinto like 33333 until it hits. 

Apollo Mayaimi

I love this! Thanks Florida Lottery now I can use my angelic and spiritual strategy on all the games. Before I would have to play 2 and 5 digit games out of state when traveling to other cities. I was wondering when you guys were planning to introduce the lovely Pick 2 @ and Pick 5 games here in Florida. We definitely needed them a long time ago...its where the money is at on the cash daily games! Today for the Pick 2 Midday the winning number was 30 and just like magic the #30 appeared on my money 1 day before the drawing. I know that Hazel (God) is watching over me and helping me to predict lottery wins. God bless everyone and have happy lottery winning year!

ArizonaDream's avatarArizonaDream

Good for Fla. I wish my state would do the same.

KINDWIN's avatarKINDWIN

I tried play 77777 / 11111 was sold out for the evening!

maxodds's avatarmaxodds

Quote: Originally posted by LiveInGreenBay on Aug 1, 2016

Pick 2?  Never heard of that one before.  What next?  Pick 1?

Actually in Jamaica there is a pick, called cash pot where you can pick a number from 1 to 36 and you can decide how much money to play it for, the more the wager the bigger the payout.

hlamb's avatarhlamb

The Florida Lottery caps out on the Cash 3 at $10 million, but the Play 4 is only $4 million. We know why the 4 is only $5 million, because of the chance a lot of people may hit all straights like 55555 then they would have to payout the maximum. Virginia's Lottery is equal for the 3 and 4.

Ron5995

Quote: Originally posted by hlamb on Aug 2, 2016

The Florida Lottery caps out on the Cash 3 at $10 million, but the Play 4 is only $4 million. We know why the 4 is only $5 million, because of the chance a lot of people may hit all straights like 55555 then they would have to payout the maximum. Virginia's Lottery is equal for the 3 and 4.

According to the info I've read, Florida caps Pick 4 at $7 million, which is more reasonable. Though, as you mention, Florida Pick 5 is capped at $5 million. That's mighty low for a lottery the size of Florida's. Seems they don't have full confidence in their new Pick 5 game yet.

Last I checked, PA Lottery caps Pick 4 at $10 million, Pick 3 at $20 million (though I could be remembering wrong; may be $10 million too), and Pick 5 is likely $20 million (past results for combos like 12345 seemingly suggest this may be a good guess), which translates to 400 plays max for straights (ie. 11111, etc). It's important to note, far as I can tell, Pick 3, 4, and 5 liability caps in PA are not specifically set by statute and can change.

Whatever the PA Pick 5 cap is, I rarely run into any problems buying such tickets - even straights at last minute often go through fine. However, 1111 for Pick 4 Evening draw is usually sold out early in the day or even the day or two before. Yet all the other Pick 4 straights are typically available most any time.

Apollo Mayaimi

I did a cursory overview of Pick 5 game in Pennsylvania over a two year period and no quintuplets (11111, 22222....) have been drawn. If I were to wager a minimum $20 on both midday & eveming draws for any quintuplets to hit I'd lost $7,560. Could I sustain a projected future hit say within a 3-5 year period that a quintuplet will eventually hit?

LiveInGreenBay's avatarLiveInGreenBay

Quote: Originally posted by KINDWIN on Aug 1, 2016

I tried play 77777 / 11111 was sold out for the evening!

How can lottery numbers be sold out?  Who's running things there?  The mafia?

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