Minnesota Gopher 5 Lottery Review

Simple lotteries are popular amongst players around the world due to their easy methods of play. As a standard, these lotteries go beyond just being simple to play and offer high odds and jackpots as well. All this is usually bundled into a ticket that retails for a reasonable price. Other times, not all of these conditions are met, and yet the lottery is still something that we cannot wait to play. In this Minnesota Gopher 5 Lottery review, we will look at what this lottery is all about and how you can use it to potentially win some extra cash.

History

The game was launched on September 5, 2005—making it a relatively old game by some lottery standards. The game boasts the second-largest number pool of any pick-five lottery in the United States. It is run by the Minnesota Lottery to raise funds that are funnelled back into the state through various social channels.

How to Play Minnesota Gopher 5 Lottery

As we mentioned above, playing this lottery game is ridiculously simple. All that you need to do is choose five unique numbers from a pool ranging between 1 and 47. If you don’t feel like choosing your own number, you can opt to use the quick pick feature available. This will select five random numbers for you so that you don’t have to.

Once you have selected your five numbers (or had them chosen for you), you are free to purchase your ticket. Tickets are sold for $1 each—a price that is pretty common among many lotteries in America. After purchasing your ticket, you can simply wait until the time of the draw to see if you are a lucky winner.

Odds of Winning

The odds of winning the jackpot for this lottery are 1 in 1,533,939. All things considered, these are some pretty great odds, but it’s worth noting that the minimum jackpot is only $100,000. Thankfully, this jackpot does roll over each time that it is not claimed and there’s no restriction on how many times it can roll over. Because of this, the jackpot can grow to decent amounts pretty quickly.

The odds of winning any prize from Minnesota Gopher 5 are 1 in 12.

Minnesota Gopher 5 Payout Chart

If there are winning claims against the jackpot amount, the jackpot is split between all players who are eligible to claim. This can seriously affect the amount that you will win if you and ten other people all win the jackpot. Luckily, that does not seem to occur very often.

Drawing Time

Minnesota Gopher 5 holds three draws each week. The draws take place at 6:17 PM (CDT) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The official results are published on the lottery’s website shortly after the draw has finished.

Biggest Jackpots

The biggest jackpot ever paid out by the lottery occurred on November 12, 2014. The lucky winner walked away with a total jackpot of $2.01 million after the jackpot had rolled over for several weeks. While it does not come even close to some of the other lotteries in the world today, this would a great chunk of change to win, especially at those odds.

Payout Options

All winnings, including the jackpot, are paid out only in cash lump sums. This means that if you are lucky enough to win the jackpot after it has grown to a substantial amount, you will need to be very careful about how you spend your winnings.

Taxes

As with other American lotteries, the state and federal taxes have a way of throttling the happiness of new jackpot winners. For this lottery, any winnings over the $5,000 threshold will be subjected to both state and federal tax. For state tax, 7.25% of your winnings will be withheld. Also, a further 24% will be withheld for federal tax. This equates to a total of 31.25%.

This means that if you win the minimum jackpot of $100,000, you will only receive $68,750. The other $31,250 of your winnings will head right on over to the taxman.

How to Play Minnesota Gopher 5 Online

If you remember when this game first launched, you will remember that it was available on a variety of leading online lotto websites. Sadly, as of August 31, 2015, the Minnesota Lottery is no longer permitted to sell any lottery tickets for any of their games online. This prohibition on online sales follows a vote by the Minnesota State Legislature on whether or not the lottery should be able to offer players eTickets.

What this boils down to is that if you would like to play in this lottery game, you will need to find your nearest authorised merchant and go and purchase your ticket in person.

Minnesota Gopher 5 – Is It Worth Playing?

Considering the jackpot occasionally dips into $1 million or even $2 million territory, Minnesota Gopher 5 offers some pretty solid odds—there is no arguing that. However, its usual jackpot is not particularly high, and its ticket prices are in line with other significant lotteries, including some with bigger jackpots.

All that being said, we still think that this is a great lottery that anybody in the vicinity of an authorised merchant should play. This is not just because the lottery is easy to play but also because it offers decent chances to win, and any amount of winnings is much better than no winnings at all.

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