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.
Very well written article...scoured it until I found the most important passage---mechanical balls will be used. Maryland lotto players how lucky you are!
Sad to see 5 Card Cash going away. I'm anxiously awaiting the payout scale for the Pick 5. I have a feeling Maryland will have some kind of crazy payouts. The store where I usually play lottery has yet to put out the play cards.
Way to Go Maryland!!
Hopefully Michigan will dump this stupid game too (Poker Lotto)
The payouts are even worse on this game in Michigan on the lower prizes.
Well, we've got 5 days to come up with some tracking charts.
Nice trade!
Though I rather play 5 Card Cash than buying a scratch-off, I'd like to see the KY Lottery make the same trade.
You are probably right. This is probably a nice trade because 5 Card Cash was a computerized game and the the pick 5 is not.
Always great to see a state recognize when a game is not working and not hesitate to replace it. Players love to try new games. Keep the games coming and the players will play.
Now we can play Cash Poop on-line. "May" send them a suggestion to change it to less frequent drawings to build up some kind of decent payouts...but seriously doubt I will.
Here's the quote from their reply regarding Kentucky Lottery: "At this time there is not a plan to go back to mechanical ball drawings but we will pass your feedback on to our draw game product team." What do they say in Brooklyn fuggettaboutit? Poor old Coronavirus which has been around forever gets the blame...mutated to Covid-19 as all viruses do.
Be really difficult to have live ball drawings for games like Cash Pop and Keno that are drawn every four minutes, 21 hours a day. Probably not much support to have live Five Card Cash drawings either. Might be lots of support for going back to live pick-3 and pick-4 drawings if they added pick-5 game and the pandemic is finally under control.
Found a couple of payout charts in states with pick-5 games, Ohio and Pennsylvania and the payouts are similar. Always like the front and back 2, 3, and 4 betting options.
If any one plays the 60 way box, we'll have to remember to make 50c bets. Or else the taxes (32.95% Fed & Md.) will take a huge bite out of the $840-850 or so winnings.
If you remember in my months ago posts that it was said it is impossible to have mechanical ball drawings for both Keno and or Cash Pop. My concern again is with Cashball 225, Pick 3 and Pick 4 going to CNG or RNG if that's what it is called. Virginia and Georgia did not change to this awful computerized pick.
That being said this retired Respiratory Therapist/Soldier won't hold his breath waiting for KLC to revert back to the 'old way.'
The story doesn't say what type of drawing they'll use when the Maryland Lottery replaces their Five Card Cash game with a Pick-5 game.
How all KY lottery players feel about the non live ball drawings can be determined by an increase or decrease in game sales. The annual report should have the answer.
Yes it does. Md will use traditional ball machines for the pick5.
Ninth paragraph down article clearly states mechanical drawing.
Found something in the KY Lottery annual report that suggest pick-3 players don't worry about how the numbers are drawn:
"Pick 3, which far and away continues to be the most widely played Kentucky Lottery draw game (more than doubling
sales of any other terminal-based game), posted a 16.1% sales increase from the previous year. Sales for the game
ended FY21 at $194.2 million, a $26.9 million increase. Pick 4 sales increased for the same period, ending up 18.1%
at $60.2 million. That’s a $9.2 million increase from FY20."
"Ninth paragraph down" is probably why I missed it. But regardless that I skimmed through the article and missed something, the point of the article is the Maryland Lottery is replacing one game with another game they believe will help to increase overall sales. And based on KY's pick-3 and 4 sales, they might consider doing the same.
Do you think that adding Pick 3 and Pick 4 to on-line sales may have helped?
You may have noticed that playing on-line you cannot buy both mid-day/evening draws @ the same time. Of course it is a non-issue, you just add another line. Originally with their on-line sales 'they' (hearsay!) said that to help Mom and Pop stores Pick 3 & 4 would not be offered on-line. Like I said before I asked them why can't both drawings be offered @ the same time and their reply was once again to help the stores. Not sure what difference it makes. As for me personally I play LESS on-line than ever before, just store bought now. Zero balance in my account.
"My concern again is with Cashball 225, Pick 3 and Pick 4 going to CNG or RNG if that's what it is called."
And why I posted the KY Lottery annual report that shows substantial increasing in pick-3 and pick-4 sales.
"Pick 3, which far and away continues to be the most widely played Kentucky Lottery draw game (more than doubling
sales of any other terminal-based game), posted a 16.1% sales increase from the previous year. Sales for the game
ended FY21 at $194.2 million, a $26.9 million increase. Pick 4 sales increased for the same period, ending up 18.1%
at $60.2 million. That’s a $9.2 million increase from FY20."
You seem to be saying players are concerned about how the games are drawn, but sales are showing something very different. Online play is just another option players can use and lots of players are using it.
"Sales for the Kentucky Lottery’s online channel were the largest single growth category for the company in FY21. Sales via this outlet finished FY21 at $137.1 million, an increase of $92.1 million or 204.6%"
The annual report doesn't mention Mom and Pop stores sales, but with the overall sales increased, those stores probably benefited too. Not sure why not getting Online tickets with both midday and evening is a huge problem when you can get both on separate tickets or why players should support Mom and Pop stores either.
I'm not a fan of RNG drawings, but according to record sales, it's not that big a deal to most players.
Players that I have spoken to do not like RNG, that being said many did not realize the change had been made. One player said that explains why he hasn't been winning as often...be that as it may.
As far as playing mid-day/evening on the same on-line ticket the big deal is something called convenience. I thought you lived in NY? IDK/IDC, not really an issue. As for convenience have called IGT several times about one issue, but sometimes you just have to choose your battles and since they are still working @ home it doesn't get fixed. I like it when things work to make life easier. So if I pick my own #'s say for Powerball on-line, you enter the first #. Instead of it being a good program and it automatically populates to the next spot for you to enter, you must manually hit tab. That is poor programming on the builder's part. Never have those issues ordering products on-line. This is the 21st Century and computers are supposed to make lives easier. As the old saying goes 'garbage in, garbage out.' Perhaps a non-issue for most folks. Can attest to how badly computerized charting for health care is and tried to get the builders @ work to fix things. Since I worked with Physician's directly they had it much worse than regular HCP with very, very expensive computer systems and how things are much more difficult/time consuming for them. So glad I'm retired. We worked with Peds patients and unfortunately our hospital chain built the system for adults, not Pediatrics and the difference between those two is almost like comparing apples to oranges. Point is of my long rant is you get what you pay for!!
Haven't talked to many pick-3 players so I don't know if they even know the drawings were lived streamed twice a day before they changed. Don't know if the KY Lottery has the resources to poll players either. But I do know there was a $26.9 million increase in pick-3 sales. That doesn't prove players like the RNG drawings or would rather have live streamed drawing, but they are playing through the changes.
The Online site has glitches, but was always paid when I won. I play Online four minute Keno and at times was up against the cut off and was "shut out" a few times. But I also was shut out waiting for someone in a store line to decide which flavor of Vape they wanted. Played Keno at Kiosks that ran out of paper while I was making bets too.
We don't live in a perfect World so I don't expect everything to be perfect. And if I had a long list of legitimate lottery play grievances or believed conspiracy theories, I wouldn't play.
Won $500 playing KENO on-line not too long after it was introduced. Won't rehash about trying to get the money transferred to my bank...it was a little bit of a hassle but worked out fine!!
REALLY happy to see this change - did not like 5 card cash.
Now how often do you get to 'guess' what the FIRST number will come out in a new game??
Would suck if something like MY ZIP CODE came out for the first number and I didnt play it -
Yes, play your zip code, or other zip codes to your liking.
