5 Card Lotto (New Jersey)

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• New Jersey Lottery

New Jersey 5 Card Lotto was a lottery game offered from 1988 to 1990.

It was the New Jersey Lottery's response to the initial wave of "all-cash" terminal-based U.S. lottery games with a higher prize potential than those offered in pick-3 and pick-4 games. However, rather than an all-number field, this early pick-5 game used the 52 cards from a standard deck of playing cards.

A $1 play allowed players to choose five cards each among three games. The winning combination, drawn twice each week, were the five "cards" (ping-pong balls) drawn. Although a "poker-themed" game, poker hands (four of a kind; full house, flush, etc.) were not used to determine winning tickets. Instead, any game matching at least three of the five cards won a parimutuel prize. A ticket with any game matching all five cards won (or shared) the cash jackpot, which started at $200,000 and remained there until sales supported a higher top prize.

Unusual at the time, 5 Card Lotto drawings were broadcast during the early afternoon. Drawings eventually were shifted to the more conventional evenings.

The game had its "die-hard" fans, partly because there were no "annuity" prizes; however, the game never proved extremely popular. (Except for the Washington's Lottery game Quinto, which started before 5 Card Lotto was retired, lasting 17 years until 2007, terminal-based games that did not draw "numbers" were often short-lived.)

New Jersey launched a more successful all-cash pick-5 game, Jersey Cash 5, in 1992, and continues to this day.