Bonus Match 5
Bonus Match 5 is the Maryland Lottery's quirky daily game. Five numbers from a 39-ball pool, plus a Bonus Ball drawn from the 34 that didn't get pulled. One ticket, one dollar.
How it works: Bonus Match 5
Choose five numbers from 1 to 39, or auto-pick. After the main draw, a Bonus Ball is selected from the remaining 34. Tickets cost a dollar. Match 5 for the top prize of $50,000; lower tiers pay for matches with and without the Bonus Ball.
The real odds of Bonus Match 5
These figures come straight from the game's official number matrix, so they're fixed by math — not by which numbers you pick. A quick pick has exactly the same chance as any other combination, and no generator can change that.
- Match all 5 main numbers
- 1 in 575,757
- Match all 5 numbers plus the bonus
- 1 in 19,575,738
Putting those odds in perspective
- Total possible combinations
- 19,575,738
- Cost to buy every combination
- $19,575,738
- Tickets for a 50% chance of the jackpot
- 13,568,868
- Tickets for a 1% chance of the jackpot
- 196,743
Playing one line per draw, you'd expect to hit the jackpot about once every 19,575,738 draws — roughly once every 53,632 years.
How Bonus Match 5 compares
Among the 14 games we generate, Bonus Match 5 ranks #8 by jackpot difficulty (1 = hardest to win).
| # | Game | Jackpot odds (1 in) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keno | 1,646,492,110,120 |
| 2 | Powerball | 292,201,338 |
| 3 | Mega Millions | 290,472,336 |
| 4 | Bank a Million | 130,504,920 |
| 5 | Super Lotto Plus | 41,416,353 |
| 6 | Lotto America | 25,989,600 |
| 7 | Lotto Texas | 25,827,165 |
| 8 | Bonus Match 5 (this game) | 19,575,738 |
| 9 | Wild Money | 16,564,086 |
| 10 | Match 6 | 13,983,816 |
| 11 | Classic Lotto 47 | 10,737,573 |
| 12 | Tri-State Megabucks Plus | 4,496,388 |
| 13 | All or Nothing | 2,704,156 |
| 14 | Texas Two Step | 1,832,600 |
A brief history
Maryland Lottery launched Bonus Match 5 on September 25, 2006. The pull-from-remaining bonus mechanic was unusual at the time and gave the game a second wind: it doubled the number of winning tiers without inflating odds. It still draws nightly and pays cash.