ialottery blog

Two Giant-Jackpot Games For Iowa

There’s huge lottery news in Iowa this weekend! Starting Sunday, you can buy tickets in both of the country’s premier big-jackpot games when Mega Millions® joins Powerball® on the list of lotto games sold in Iowa.

The addition means players in Iowa will be able to play for even more big lotto prizes.  With Mega Millions drawings on Tuesday and Friday nights and Powerball drawings on Wednesdays and Saturdays, you’ll have four chances each week to hit it big!

With more people playing, we expect the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots to grow bigger and faster than they would have on their own. And, we expect more winners to be taking home more prizes.

Powerball and Mega Millions are both lotto games with jackpot prizes that have climbed into the hundreds of millions of dollars. But to date, the games have been sold by separate groups of lotteries. U.S. lottery directors reached an agreement in October to allow what’s being called “cross-selling” of the two games.

Here in Iowa, we think the biggest impact will be felt in eastern Iowa, and specifically along our border with Illinois. Illinois is the only state bordering Iowa that’s been a member of Mega Millions rather than Powerball, so when the two games’ jackpots have been big, players have driven back and forth to buy tickets. Now Iowa Lottery players will be able to buy all their tickets right here at home.

The Iowa Lottery has had six Powerball jackpot winners. The largest Powerball jackpot won in Iowa was a $200.8 million prize claimed in October 2006 by a Fort Dodge couple. Now we’re looking forward to seeing who will be our state’s first Mega Millions jackpot winner!

Lottery Proceeds To Veterans Causes Near $4 Million

In just a year and a half, the Iowa Lottery has raised nearly $4 million to help Iowa veterans and their families, and we owe you a big thank-you for that success!

Gov. Chet Culver signed a law in March 2008 that authorized the lottery to create two new instant-scratch games and two additional pull-tab games each year, with all profits from the games dedicated to the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund. Lottery tickets for the cause were introduced in July 2008 and since that time, nearly $4 million has been provided to the Veterans Trust Fund from the sale of tickets.

The newest scratch game dedicated to the cause is “Veterans Cash,” which began sales Monday, while the newest pull-tab game to benefit the Trust Fund is “Star Spangled Bucks.” It was introduced on Jan. 11. Both are $1 games with a red, white and blue theme.

The Iowa Veterans Trust Fund was created to provide assistance to qualified veterans and their families. Currently, funds are used for unemployment or underemployment assistance due to service-related causes; assistance with vision, hearing, and dental care, durable medical equipment and prescription drugs; counseling and substance abuse services; housing repair; and transitional housing in an emergency. Trust Fund expenditures are approved through the Iowa Veterans Commission.

Another $1 Million Scratch Ticket Winner

Not many scratch tickets have pay-offs in the millions of dollars, but the Iowa Lottery has two scratch tickets that have top prizes of $1 million: “Set For Life” and “$35 Million Cash Spectacular.” Just recently we had another lucky player come forward to claim the fifth top prize in our Set For Life scratch game.

We met Richard Bauder, 25, when he claimed his prize at the Iowa Lottery's headquarters in Des Moines last week. Bauder posed for a photo with Lottery CEO Terry Rich as he was presented with his ceremonial check for $1 million.

Bauder, who lives in Ankeny, bought his winning ticket at a local Casey's on W. First St.

Set For Life is a $20 scratch game with eight top prizes of $1 million. Players who win the top prize have the option of receiving it as an annuity or lump-sum payment. If the winner chooses to take the annuity, he/she will be paid $40,000 per year for a period of 25 years.
 
After speaking with his financial advisor, Bauder decided to receive his winnings in one lump sum.

Not to worry, you still have a shot at winning a million dollars because there are three top prizes of $1 million remaining in Set For Life, along with several hundred other prizes ranging from $100 to $10,000.

Also, the $35 Million Cash Spectacular scratch game has three top prizes still available.

Winners In Midwest Millions Drawing

And the latest $500,000 winner in our Midwest Millions game is … a nurse from eastern Iowa!

Kim Hertel of Washington was in disbelief when we called her today to tell her she’d won the top prize in the Midwest Millions drawing in Topeka, Kan. Click here to listen to an interview with Kim. 

A central Iowa woman also won a $10,000 prize in today’s drawing. The Midwest Millions event was held this morning at a mall in Topeka, Kan. About 94,000 entries were received for it, so today’s winners definitely beat the odds!

The winners were:
 $500,000  Kim Hertel, Washington, Iowa 
  $10,000   Ronnie Burnett, Leavenworth, Kan.
  $10,000   James Hess, Clay Center, Kan.
  $10,000   Deberia Blair, Topeka, Kan.
  $10,000   Diane Robinson, Indianola, Iowa
  $10,000   Mark Loftin, Elk City, Kan.

There will be another drawing in Midwest Millions on April 16 in Des Moines, so if you didn’t win a prize in today’s contest, we hope you’ll try again! For more information about Midwest Millions and how to enter the drawings, click here.

Offsets Explained

It can be an uncomfortable subject to tackle, but we’ve had a lot of questions about set-asides (commonly known as offsets) lately, so we’re taking this opportunity to explain them further.
Sometimes winners come into our offices who owe money to the state for whatever reason; sometimes money is owed for judicial fines, court costs, child support, etc. By law, the Iowa Lottery is required to withhold those debts from the player’s winnings.

Here’s how it works:

An offset database that is available to all state agencies and even some city agencies (if they’re owed money). Within state government, there is an offset department that collects the debts and distributes the money to the appropriate agencies when they are paid.

At the lottery, we’re required to run our winners’ information against that database before we can write them a check. If the computer finds a set-aside in the database, that money is automatically deducted from the check. Our validations associates never get to see the database, and aren’t even aware of any set-asides until the check has printed. It is an automatic process that is required by Iowa law. 

If players feel they no longer owe money to the state, they are given a contact within the offset department or the agency requesting the set-aside to investigate the case and possibly refund that money.

Tech The Halls Winners Announced

We’ve held the drawing, completed all the procedures and now it’s time to announce the winners in our “Tech The Halls” holiday bonus promotion!

Two hundred prizes from Sony® are on the line along with 10 prizes of $10,000!

Click here to see the winning numbers and names we selected in the drawing, or click here to access videos that give the results. There were more than 405,000 entries in the promotion, so a lot of people wanted the prizes involved!   

If your entry was selected, you’ll need to present to the Lottery the signed ticket that you used to enter the promotion, along with a completedclaim form. Hurry, the deadline is 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4!

And for those of you who do not see your number on the winning numbers lists, please hold on to your tickets. Please keep your tickets until all results are official and all prizes have been claimed. So, until you see that every prize has been claimed for the ticket you entered, hold on to your tickets.

Tax Forms For Lottery Winnings

When you win a prize of more than $600 in an Iowa Lottery game, the lottery sends to you a form that you will need to use to file your taxes for that calendar year. The document is called a W-2G form and it lists the gross amount you have won in lottery prizes during the year as well as any federal and state taxes that were withheld from those winnings.  

As you can imagine, with the millions of winners that the lottery has each year, it takes some time to process all of those forms and get them ready to send out. The Iowa Lottery begins to review the records of its winners and prepare the documents as soon as each calendar year ends.

The forms must be mailed by Jan. 31 of the new year and the lottery always meets that deadline. We try to have the forms processed before then if possible, but they are always mailed out no later than Jan. 31.