Cash4Life: Rules, Price & Odds

How to Play Cash4Life

As we already said, Cash4Life in the US is a very new lottery program, starting back in 2014 only. You may think it’s been eight years already, so how is this new? If you bring other lotteries like the Powerball (1992) or Mega Millions (1996), Cash4Life is new.

In the very beginning, it was only a collaboration between the New Jersey State Lottery (NJ Lottery) and New York State Lottery. Cash4Life replaced another lottery called the Sweet Million in New York.

The first set of tickets went on sale on June 13, 2014. The first draw was only three days later, on June 16, 2014. More state lottery boards started showing interest in the program as time went by. Apart from NY and NJ, the first state to join was Pennsylvania. It joined in April of 2015. It’s understandable as the online gambling situation in the two localities are identical.

After Pennsylvania, the next state to join was Virginia. Then Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland, Georgia, Florida, etc., joined the party to increase the revenue of the lottery board. Missouri's latest addition to the paradigm, joining in April of 2021.

If you have previous experience with other lottery programs in the US, you may already know how to play Cash4Life. You follow the same modality of picking a few numbers from a pool and choosing a unique number from a different collection. Then, on one fine day, the draw of the lottery takes place where all participants can verify whether they’ve won the lottery or not.

For Cash4Lifel, you get to pick five numbers from the pool of 60 numbers. The numbers are, of course, from 1 to 60. This is your set for the main numbers.

Once you’re done with the main numbers, you can move on to select the "Cash Ball". This is the special ball that adds a new dynamic to the odds and the payout of the casino. The pool, in this case, is very limited. It’s between 1 and 4. The crème de la crème of prizes is when you match all five main numbers and the Cash Ball. There are many other prizes for you as you match fewer and fewer numbers.

Rules of Cash4Life

Where there is a draw, there are going to rule. If you look at all the major lottery programs worldwide, you’ll notice that all of them have a defined set of rules for the participants. The same is true for Cash4Life in the US. To help you streamline the process, we will include all the important powers in one place.

Odds to Win the Prizes

In pretty much all luck-based events, there is a discussion of odds. Odds are the likelihood of an event happening. While online casino games have fixed odds, the lottery odds are calculated based on an estimated number of tickets sold.

Thankfully, Cash4Life has a list of potential odds offered for you. The longest odds are for the top prize or the "jackpot", if you want to call it that. 

• The odds are a whopping 1 in 21,846,048! If it sounds too steep to you, wait until you see the winning potential.

• The 2nd prize is no less fierce than the first one. Understandably, it has very long odds as well. 1 in 7,282,016, to be precise. 

• The 3rd prize has odds of 1 in 79,440 only.

• The 4th prize has odds of 1 in 26,480.

• The 5th prize has an odds of 1 in 1,471.

• The 6th prize has odds of 1 in 490.

• The 7th prize has odds of 1 in 83.

• The 8th prize has odds of 1 in 28.

• The 9th prize has odds of 1 in 13.

If you’re disappointed with the odds of the high-value prizes, you’d be glad to know that the overall odds to win any prize is 1 in 8. It sure looks a lot more achievable in 1 in 21M+ odds, right?

Price of Cash4Life Ticket

One of the things we like the most about lottery ticket prices is that they’re extremely cheap. Even the massive winnings you see on the news also happen from a mere $2 ticket! It’s fascinating, at the very least.

The same goes for the Cash4Life lottery in the US. The price for each play starts at $2 only. Unlike some UK lotteries, there’s no particular limit on how many tickets you can buy. You can buy as many tickets as you want as long as your online payment method allows it.

While the base ticket price is the same across all the participating states, some offer additional benefits.

For example, in 2015, the New Jersey state lottery board added the "Doubler NJ" feature. If you want to activate it, all you have to do is pay $1 more for the ticket. The benefit of this feature is that all non-jackpot wins are doubled if you win! All prizes except for the top 2 qualify for Doubler NJ.

Similarly, Missouri entered the market with a bang disguised in the "EZ Match" feature. It’s an instant win feature that adds to any of your core winnings from the lottery. The Tennessee lottery board has a similar feature called "Quick Cash".

Cash4Life Jackpot

If you haven’t guessed from the name yet, the purpose of the Cash4Life lottery is to give you "cash for life". So, the ultimate prize is $1,000, every day, for the rest of your life! That’s $365,000 a year!

You win the first prize when you match all five balls and the Cash ball during the draw. As we said earlier, the 2nd prize might not be as fierce, but it’s extremely generous. You get $1,000 every week for the rest of your life. That’s $52,000 a year.

The top prize is not shared. It means only 1 participant can claim the $1,000 prizes every day. Or, they can go for the lump-sum payment of $7,000,000. The 2nd prize is also available as a cash option, but the prize is shared between 2 to 14 people. It depends on how many winners there are.

Biggest Win Made

As the prizes are predetermined and fixed, there’s no concept of a "jackpot" in this case. And so, the maximum win made is not a jaw-dropping value. The maximum a player can win is $7,000,000, minus the taxes.

Results of Cash4Life

Cash4Life US has drawn for the lottery every single day of the week! If you tune into Livestream.com every day at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, you can witness the draw for yourself. The studio is located at the New Jersey Lottery headquarters. The current host of the draw is Jacqueline Knox.

You can also find the results for the draws on any of the lottery sites' results pages. As New Jersey is the governing body for the Cash4Life game in the US, we recommend using the result page of the NJ Lottery. It would help if you used the search option on the site to search for your number.

How to Claim Cash4Life Prizes

Like all other major lotteries in the US, you can either go for the Annuity option or get the cash option for your Cash4Life prize. The advertised $1,000 every day for the rest of your life is part of the annuity program. If you get the cash option, you get 7,000,000 at once.

How you claim the prize will vary from state to state. So, please visit the state lottery board website to know exactly how to claim the prizes. The process mostly includes contacting the lottery board and validating the ticket numbers. You are usually allowed to draw up to a certain amount directly from a lottery retailer.

Taxes of These Prizes

The US might offer some of the biggest lotteries we’ve seen so far, but it’s not a good country to win smaller jackpots. The federal taxes can go up to 37% of your winnings! There will always be a little wiggling room based on which state you live in. So, it’s best to read up on the state lottery law before you claim the prizes.

You’re most likely to receive the winnings on the bright side after all the taxes are deducted. So, there might not be any need for you to worry over the taxes.

Our Opinion on Cash4Life

Cash4Life is not yet flourished like the other lottery programs, including the Mega Millions or the Powerball. Then again, it’s a very new lottery, and not everyone knows about it. More states are joining the party with the NJ lottery.

So, as time goes by, the prize pool may increase along with the number of participants. If you want to benefit from a lottery that doesn’t have crazy odds just yet, Cash4Life might be a great option.

Cash4Life FAQs

Let’s wrap things up by answering a few questions you may have accumulated from our Cash4Life guide.