The North Dakota Lottery announced today the launch of a new COVID-19 inspired game called Cash 4 Covid. The launch of the game is the first signal from the state that the virus won’t be leaving North Dakota anytime soon.
Players will be issued a ticket with five slots. Four of the slots represent four counties in North Dakota while the final slot represents the state’s daily death tally. If a player’s Cash 4 Covid ticket matches the daily positivity rate in Burleigh, Cass, Grand Forks, and Ward Counties while the final number matches the daily COVID-19 causality number, the player will win the Cash 4 Covid jackpot.
North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenjhem, whose office oversees the North Dakota Lottery, says he’s simply trying to make lemonade from a year’s worth of lemons.
“As the Governor continues to twiddle his thumbs while the Chinese virus spirals out of control in North Dakota, our office is using Burgum’s model of reinventing government to make light of the situation we find ourselves in today,” says Stenjhem. “We’re hoping Cash 4 Covid will bring more awareness to the pandemic and actually make us all look forward to our day’s COVID-19 numbers. In the end, I am hopeful our new lottery game will be a great source of revenue for the state as our oil and tax revenues dwindle.”
Stenjhem says the jackpot from Cash 4 Covid will be funded through excess CARES Act money.
“We’re still sitting on a pile of cash that needs to be spent. Rather than investing it on patios for restaurants that are now covered in snow or ventilation systems that do nothing to prevent people from spreading COVID in a business, we’re giving North Dakotans the hope of depositing some CARES Act cash in their bank accounts just in time for the holidays.”
Even if players don’t win the Cash 4 Covid jackpot, they can still be eligible for other prizes including Team North Dakota face masks, hand sanitizer, a reserved ICU bed at a local hospital or a one-month extension to unemployment benefits.
More on this story as it develops.
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