“A hundred grand” is a memorable description of Gimme 5. The qualification is worth remembering too: $100,000 is the top-prize pool for a drawing, divided among winning plays if more than one matches all five numbers. It is not a separate $100,000 payment promised to every winner.
Gimme 5 is shared by Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The number-matching game is the same across the three states, so this guide covers that shared format. Use the lottery that issued your ticket for its purchase and claim procedures rather than assuming you can redeem anywhere in the region.
What a dollar enters
Select five different numbers from 1 through 39, or request an Easy Pick. Each basic entry costs $1 for one drawing. Order does not matter, so 4, 12, 20, 31 and 39 is the same combination whether displayed ascending or descending.
There is no separately selected bonus number. If you write a personal list before buying, keep it to five valid numbers and compare the issued entry with that list. The playslip is an instruction, not the ticket that establishes participation.
A birthday-based selection remains a normal combination. Choosing numbers above 31, using Quick Pick or arranging the selection into an attractive pattern does not make a particular valid combination more likely to be drawn.
Divide the top pool before describing a win
If a drawing has one all-five winning play, that play receives the $100,000 top pool. If it has two, each receives $50,000. If it has four, each receives $25,000. These examples describe shares before applicable deductions.
The sharing applies across the participating game, not just to winning entries bought at your particular store. Seeing one local winner in a news report does not establish that the entire pool went to that ticket.
For a group purchase, make another distinction: the game's division among winning plays happens before your group's own agreement on dividing its share. If your group holds one of two winning plays, its game share is $50,000. Five equal group members would then divide that share according to their agreement, rather than each expecting $100,000.
The smaller prizes have their own amounts
Four matches pay $250, three pay $7 and two pay $2. Only the highest prize for an individual play is paid. A four-match entry does not add $7 and $2 for the smaller subsets inside it.
Suppose you selected 4, 12, 20, 31 and 39, and the result is 4, 12, 20, 33 and 38. The three shared values qualify for $7. A different row on the same ticket containing 33 cannot repair the first row or turn it into four matches.
The $2 two-match award is cash, rather than a free entry. It exceeds the price of one basic $1 play, but may still leave a larger purchase below its total cost. If you bought ten entries and one returns $2 while the rest lose, the overall return is $2 on $10 spent.
Weekday drawings make advance dates worth reading
Gimme 5 draws Monday through Friday. Maine lists a 6:45 p.m. sales cutoff for the applicable draw and a 6:59 p.m. drawing, in local Eastern Time. Confirm the current deadline with the issuing lottery when buying elsewhere in the region.
Maine permits up to thirty drawings on an advance purchase. Thirty drawings are not thirty consecutive calendar days when the standard schedule skips weekends. One selection across thirty drawings costs $30, while two across those drawings cost $60.
Read the first and last covered dates instead of estimating the range from memory. A Friday purchase near the cutoff is especially worth checking: the date printed on the ticket, rather than the day you visited the store, tells you which result applies.
The advertised amount does not become overdue
Gimme 5 has 575,757 possible five-number combinations. One fixed selection has a 1 in 575,757 chance of matching all five in a drawing. Previous misses do not shrink that set of possibilities.
A familiar $100,000 headline should not be read like a jackpot that necessarily accumulates every time nobody wins. Plan around the current published game structure and the specific drawing's official information, not a presumed rollover from an older result.
Keeping your spending limit consistent is easier if you decide it before checking how many drawings passed without a top winner. The game's probability does not reward you for waiting or compensate you for a losing streak.
Keep the issuing state attached to the entry
Save the ticket's issuing state, covered dates and selections together. Check each purchased drawing using official results and have a potential prize validated through the issuing lottery's authorized process. Keep the original physical ticket or the official virtual entry record, as applicable.
The Maine lottery directory, New Hampshire lottery directory and Vermont lottery directory provide local context without creating three competing explanations of the same game. For Gimme 5, the headline question remains simple: how many winning plays share this drawing's top pool?
Official sources
Rules checked 2026-10-19. Use the operator for current prizes, deadlines and ticket validation.