Out with the old and in with the new — a popular draw game is coming to Maryland

By Kate Northrop

The Maryland Lottery announced that it will be ending 5 Card Cash and will replace it with a new Pick 5 game, the state's newest draw game in six years since it joined Cash4Life in 2016.

If you want to get your final 5 Card Cash plays in before it's gone, now's the time. 5 Card Cash will be closing out this week, but players might be excited to know that there is a new game ready to take its place.

The very last drawing for 5 Card Cash will be Sun., Feb. 6, 2022, and the final day to cash winning 5 Card Cash tickets will be 182 days from the draw date printed on the ticket.

Players who won a free ticket by matching a pair and have not claimed the prize by February 6 may still present the winning ticket at a retailer to receive $2 in cash or as a credit toward any other Lottery purchase. Those winning tickets may also be redeemed at a self-service vending machine, but the winnings will be credited toward the player's machine balance to purchase other tickets or voucher out.

A full prizes and odds chart for 5 Card Cash can be viewed on Lottery Post's Prizes and Odds page.

Part of the reason for doing away with the game is that it has accounted for a very small fraction of sales for a number of years, the Maryland Lottery told Lottery Post. However, the game is making room for another popular contender.

While 5 Card Cash is on its way out, Carole Gentry, Managing Director of Communications at the Maryland Lottery, revealed in a news segment that Pick 5 is coming to the state starting next week.

"We are about to launch our first draw game in six years," Gentry announced. "Players love Pick 3 or Pick 4 games — they're very popular — and now we've got our Pick 5 game."

Prizes for the game will range from $25 up to $50,000 at 50 cents or $1 a wager. The game will be drawn using a traditional ball machine, which, upon the game's release, will mean that every drawing the Maryland Lottery conducts will be drawn via true mechanical lottery drawings (see Lottery Post's State Lottery Report Card to see which games in your state are drawn mechanically and digitally).

The Lottery recommends that players who want to claim Pick 5 prizes in-person should visit the official state government lottery website to make an appointment.

Pick 5 will launch with twice-daily drawings (middays and evenings) on Mon., Feb 7.

"Our daily number games (Pick 3 and Pick 4) have been strong performers with steadily increasing sales, and as we evaluated our product mix, we decided to add a new daily game," Lottery spokesperson Seth Elkin told Lottery Post.

Pick 5 — which is sometimes referred to as "Quinto" by lottery enthusiasts to differentiate it from Pick 5 lotto games — will also feature similar bet types and will function similarly to Pick 3 and Pick 4 using five ball sets numbered 0 to 9. According to the Lottery, combined sales of Pick 3 and Pick 4 set an all-time record in Fiscal Year 2021 at $686.5 million and accounted for about 22% of sales.

"We have a very strong core of daily numbers players who we know will enjoy the opportunity to play Pick 5," Elkin said.

Thanks to four4me for the tip.