Prizes All Paid In Another Round Of Checks

Good news if you’ve ever bought a lottery ticket in Iowa or had a ticket redeemed here!

We’ve conducted another round of security checks at retail locations to see how winning lottery tickets are being handled, and we’re happy to report that all prizes were properly paid.

Some pretty serious problems with ticket redemption have been reported recently in other states, including Minnesota and California.

In Minnesota, eight people who worked at retail locations have been charged with felony lottery fraud after retail compliance checks by the Minnesota Lottery in December and January. Investigators say each of the clerks kept a winning ticket they were presented and attempted to claim the prize themselves. 

And this year in California, more than two dozen people working at retail outlets have been arrested for the grand theft of winning lottery tickets. All of the California suspects are accused of cheating lottery customers.

Here in Iowa, we’ve conducted a couple rounds of security checks.

Lottery security investigators posing as customers visited 126 Iowa retail locations in late February and presented lottery tickets for cashing that each had won a prize of up to $100. The outlets were in 76 communities in 54 counties and included urban and rural locations. We also went to a mix of the different types of businesses that sell lottery tickets. In every instance, the location paid the correct amount.

This week, we followed that up with another round of checks, this time at 14 locations in eight communities in central and western Iowa. And again, winning tickets were presented that had each won prizes of up to $100 and all prizes were properly paid. It appears we’ve got a smooth-running system in our state, but we all have to be on the look-out if we’re going to protect ourselves against fraud.

We’re going to keep doing these random checks of the ticket-cashing process. At the lottery, we consider it part of our duty to protect consumers as well as the integrity of the Iowa Lottery.

You can help by contacting us if you ever have a concern about the lottery, its products or operations. Our main number is 515-725-7900 and our e-mail is Wmaster@ialottery.com. If you have a security-related concern, please call our Security Department directly at 515-725-7888.