Northstar Cash
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Northstar Cash is an exclusive lottery for the state of Minnesota, operated by the Minnesota State Lottery. It has an all-cash jackpot exclusive to the state, having been established on October 7, 2003.[1]
[edit] Playing the game
To play the game, a player pays one dollar and picks five distinct numbers from 1 to 31. The player wins according to the following:
| Matches | Payoff | Odds of winning |
|---|---|---|
| 2 of 5 numbers | $ 1 | 1: 7 |
| 3 of 5 numbers | $ 5 | 1: 52 |
| 4 of 5 numbers | $ 50 | 1: 1,307 |
| 5 of 5 numbers | Jackpot | 1: 169,911 |
Overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 6. The jackpot is paid in cash and will be divided equally if there is more than one winner. The minimum jackpot amount for a drawing is $25,000.
Tickets must be purchased before 6:10 p.m. to be eligible for that day's drawing at 6:26 p.m. Drawings are held daily.
[edit] Unlikely winner
On February 11, 2007, Raymond Snouffer Jr., an airline pilot from Maplewood, Minnesota, won Northstar Cash for the second time in two days, an occurrence that lottery officials inaccurately described as "virtually incalculable".[2] (The actual probability of this happening is merely the square of the odds of a single day's jackpot win, viz. 1:28,869,747,921, assuming he held only one ticket for each drawing).[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Official Minnesota State Lottery site.
- ^ "Man Wins $25,000 Lottery Two Days in Row", SFGate.com, 2007-02-16. Retrieved on 2008-03-08.
- ^ "In Which We Are Smarter than the Minnesota Lottery". Muttroxia (2007-02-18). Retrieved on 2008-03-08.
