Quinto (lottery)

Quinto was a game offered by Washington's Lottery from 1990 until 2007.

During the 1980s, lottery jackpots in the United States had begun reaching the mega-millions. However, a popular complaint was that the jackpots in these games were paid only through an annuity; winners could not receive the cash value of a jackpot in lump sum for any reason. Washington's Lottery responded by offering Quinto, a pick-5 game with an all-cash jackpot, or "cashpot." Instead of an all-numbers game, Quinto used the 52 cards found in a standard deck, without the jokers. Players paid $1 for each game.

Players won $25 by matching three cards, $1000 by matching four cards, or won (or shared) a cashpot of at least $300,000 if all five cards drawn matched a player's ticket. Poker hands were not relevant to winning.

While not a true poker game, Quinto gave birth to a short-lived add-on, called "Beat the State".

Terminal games that are not numbers-based often have short lives. Quinto was a major exception, lasting 17 years; not until March 2007 was it retired. The replacement, Hit 5, is a more conventional pick-5 game, drawing from a field of 39 numbers.

An entirely different game known as Quinto became available through the Pennsylvania Lottery on August 26, 2008. Unlike the Washington's Lottery game, Pennsylvania's version is a five-digit number game played like its Daily Number (pick-3) and Big 4 games. Quinto's minimum play is $1, with a five-digit straight match winning $50,000.