Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 12, 1993 TAG: 9301120305
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Staff and wire report
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
NEW LOTTERY `CASH 5' GAME STARTS PAYING OFF IN FEB.
It won't have Lotto's multimillion-dollar prizes, but Virginia Lottery officials are betting quick, $100,000 payoffs and better-than-Lotto odds in a new game announced Monday will attract a new set of players to state-sponsored gambling."Cash 5," with drawings on Monday and Friday nights beginning Feb. 5, will be the lottery's fourth computer-run game.
It will work much like Lotto, with players betting on combinations of five numbers between 1 and 34.
But the game's odds - 1 in 278,256 - will be far more favorable to players than the 1 in 7.1 million for Lotto.
And the $100,000 prize for matching all five numbers ($68,000 after taxes) will be paid regardless of how much is bet on a particular drawing.
Lotto offers a $1 million minimum prize, with the jackpot growing based on how much players bet. Lotto winners get their money over 20 years, while Cash 5 prizes will be paid in one lump sum.
Cash 5 players who select 4 of 5 numbers (odds of 1 in 1,919) will win $100; those who choose 3 of 5 (odds of 1 in 69) will win $5.
Lottery Director Kenneth Thorson said the game is intended to attract people who don't play Lotto because of its longer odds and don't play Pick 3 or Pick 4, the state's other computer games, because of their relatively small payoffs.
The daily Pick 3 and Pick 4 games pay $500 and $5,000, respectively, though the lottery has been doubling those prizes recently as part of a special promotion.
Thorson conceded that the new game may simply draw players from other games, particularly Pick 4.
Lottery officials typically see a dip in play of old games when a new one is introduced, but the old games gradually recover and the overall level of play grows.
The $100,000 prize in Cash 5 is guaranteed, Thorson said, unless more than 20 players have the winning combination.
In that case, which he described as very unlikely, winners would equally divide a $2 million pot.
Lottery spokeswoman Paula Otto said that there almost certainly will be at least one $100,000 winner for every Cash 5 drawing.
Lottery officials expect that enough of the 278,256 combinations will be covered in each drawing to produce a winner.
Thorson said the game is expected to take in $30 million during the last five months of the current fiscal year, and $60 million in the year beginning July 1.
On the average, half of what the state takes in should be paid back in prizes, he said.
Introduction of the new game comes as growth in the state's take from lottery games is slowing.
The revised 1992-94 budget plan Gov. Douglas Wilder submitted last month included about $600 million in lottery profits, more than in the previous budget but $8 million less than projected last year.