Cash4Life
Cash4Life is an exciting multi-state lottery that offers you the chance to win a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. Win the jackpot and you will receive $1,000 a day for life, or $1,000 a week for life if you win the second prize.
Draws take place daily at the New Jersey Lottery headquarters, at approximately 9:00pm Eastern Time. Cash4Life costs $2 per game, with ticket sales closing at 8:45pm EST each day.
How to Play Cash4Life
Pick five numbers between 1 and 60 and one Cash Ball between 1 and 4.
The aim of the game is to match your chosen numbers with those drawn in the lottery. You win a prize by matching two or more numbers, and the top prize of $1,000 a day for life is won by matching all five main numbers plus the Cash Ball.
Cash4Life is a dual matrix game, so the five main numbers and the Cash Ball are drawn from two separate pools. This means that you could see the same number appear as one of the main numbers and the Cash Ball in the same draw.
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Go to an official New York Lottery retailer
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Pick five main numbers and one Cash Ball, or ask for a Quick Pick
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Keep your ticket safe until the draw
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Visit the latest results page after the draw to check your ticket.
If you bought a Cash4Life ticket in the last 30 days, you can ask your retailer to play it again and you will receive an identical entry for the next drawing.
Prizes and Odds of Winning
There are nine different prize tiers in Cash4Life. The top prize awards you $1,000 a day for life and the second prize is $1,000 a week for life. Payments will be made for a minimum of 20 years and if you die in this time any outstanding payments will be made to your estate. If there are multiple winners of the top prize in the same draw, it will be divided equally among them. For example, if there are two winners, each would receive $500 a day for life.
The remaining prizes are all fixed cash amounts, from $2 for matching one main number and the Cash Ball to $2,500 for matching four numbers and the Cash Ball. The table below shows the different prizes available to Cash4Life players and the odds of winning each:
| Numbers Matched | Prize | Odds of Winning |
|---|---|---|
| 5 + Cash Ball | $1,000 a day for life | 1 in 21,846,048 |
| 5 | $1,000 a week for life | 1 in 7,282,016 |
| 4 + Cash Ball | $2,500 | 1 in 79,440 |
| 4 | $500 | 1 in 26,480 |
| 3 + Cash Ball | $100 | 1 in 1,471 |
| 3 | $25 | 1 in 490 |
| 2 + Cash Ball | $10 | 1 in 83 |
| 2 | $4 | 1 in 28 |
| 1 + Cash Ball | $2 | 1 in 13 |
| Overall odds of winning Cash4Life are 1 in 8 | ||
How to Claim Prizes
Cash4Life is played in multiple states, but you can only claim prizes in the state in which you bought your ticket.
If you bought a ticket in New York, you can claim prizes up to and including $600 from any licensed lottery retailer in the state. Prizes of a greater value must be claimed at one of the New York Lottery’s Customer Service Centers, and you must provide your winning ticket and a completed claim form. Alternatively, you can mail your winning ticket, along with a claim form for prizes of $601 or more, to the New York Lottery at PO Box 7533, Schenectady, NY 12301-7533.
If you win one of the top two prizes, you will have the option of receiving the money in the form of annuity payments or as a one-time cash lump sum. If you choose the lump sum option, you will receive the estimated cash value of the prize at the time you make the claim. You will receive further information about payment options when you claim your prize at one of the lottery’s Customer Service Centers.
Prizes must be claimed within one year of the draw taking place. Any prize money left unclaimed after this period will be used to subsidize future New York Lottery events or jackpots.
New York Cash4Life Winners
The prize structure of Cash4Life means that there’s no real way of determining the lottery’s biggest payouts, but there have been some famous winners since the game started in New York in 2014.
- The first ever $1,000-a-day prize was won on June 23, 2014, but the first person to come forward to claim the top prize was Edna Aguayo of Queens, who won three weeks later in the drawing on July 14, 2014. The retired police officer revealed that an amusement park psychic had told her 16 years previously that she should buy a lottery ticket. “I knew I’d win one day”, Aguayo said, “I just didn’t know when. I thought I would win the second prize.” The winning ticket was purchased from Waldbaum’s supermarket on Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach.
- Gregory Velez from New Jersey worked in garages his whole life before he won the top Cash4Life prize on February 25, 2016, but he said he wouldn’t buy a car with his winnings. Instead, he wanted to go one step further and hire a personal chauffeur. Velez bought his Cash4Life ticket on a break from work in NYC’s Battery Park City after someone told him the top prize was worth $7 million. He validated the winning ticket at a South End newsstand the day after the draw and quit his job as soon as it was confirmed that he had won. He opted to take a cash lump sum payment of $4.63 million.
- Yangi Sherpa, a 26-year-old administrative assistant from Woodside, Queens, didn’t know what compelled her to buy a Cash4Life ticket for the drawing on July 17, 2017, but it turned out to be a good decision after she matched all six numbers to win the lottery’s top prize. “My father plays all the games and suggested I play Cash4Life”, Sherpa said. “Why? I don’t know, but I’m sure glad I did.” She chose to take her winnings as a lump sum worth $4.3 million and said she planned to buy a house with the money. The winning ticket was bought at Pronto Lotto on 74th Street in Elmhurst, New York City.
