ialottery blog

Where Can I Watch The Drawing?

With the Powerball jackpot really getting up there (it’s climbed to an estimated $220 million for Saturday’s drawing), we’re getting questions from folks who want a refresher on where they can catch the drawings.

Powerball drawings are broadcast by nearly 100 television stations nationwide. Click here for a complete list of the stations in all the Powerball states.

Iowans can see the drawings on these stations:

Market	Station	Network	Channel
Davenport	KWQC-TV	NBC	6
Des Moines	WOI-TV	ABC	5
Kirksville, Mo.	KTVO-TV	ABC	3
Sioux City	KTIV-TV	NBC	4
Waterloo	KWWL-TV	NBC	7

Powerball drawings also are available live online and are archived on the Internet if you want to check them out later.

And don’t forget, Iowa retailers can print out a list of the winning numbers for you and drawing results also are available 24/7 on our Web site.

Good luck with your Powerball tickets!

Cash Bonanza’s Winning Ways

A new instant-scratch game that hits the market today offers players more ways to win than any other game we’ve sold through the years. It’s called “Cash Bonanza” and tickets cost $10 each.

Players in Cash Bonanza try to match any of “your numbers” to any of the “winning numbers” in the play area on each ticket. If you find a coin symbol, you win the prize shown instantly. If you find a star symbol, you win double the prize shown. Prizes in the game range from $10 up to $250,000.

Look closely at the list of prizes available in Cash Bonanza and you’ll see that we’ve packed 38 different prize combinations into the game, giving you multiple ways to win at different prize levels. For example, there are five ways you can win at the $50, $100, $200 and $1,000 prize levels, while there are four ways you can win at the $500 level. You also can win up to 15 times on each ticket!

It’s all designed to produce a game that will keep you entertained for a long time to come. And, Cash Bonanza offers more than $21 million in total cash prizes!

We’re always looking at new ways to design our games and this concept has been really popular in other states. We think you’ll like it here, too!

Our sales representatives have started to deliver Cash Bonanza to retail locations today and the game will be available statewide by the close of the business day on Friday. 

An Hour Later, She’s A $250,000 Winner

This video introduces you to Barb Arrasmith, the latest top-prize winner in the “Lucky Diamonds” scratch game. But what the video doesn’t tell you is how quickly Barb claimed her $250,000 prize after she’d bought her ticket!

The story gets it start when Barb and her co-workers went out for lunch to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and stopped at a convenience store on the way back to the office. While they were at the store, some in the group bought Powerball® tickets, but Barb said she likes the scratch tickets, so she asked for Lucky Diamonds. She played the ticket when she got back to her desk and couldn’t believe her eyes.

Barb said she didn’t want to get her hopes up until the lottery could verify what she thought she saw. So, within about a hour of her win, she was already here at lottery headquarters so we could check it out.

Barb’s eyes did not deceive her: She’s a $250,000 winner. Happy Cinco de Mayo, Barb! We think you definitely had something to celebrate this year!  

First Cash Stop Winners

We had a ton of fun getting out to enjoy the sights and sounds of Iowa during our first weekend of Silver Ticket Cash Stops!

Our trips this past weekend took us to Council Bluffs and Burlington for the Celebrate CB festival and the PZAZZ! Great American Grill-Off. Below are cash prize winners from our Cash Stop contest at each event.

During each Cash Stop, you can enter nonwinning tickets in “The Silver Ticket” instant-scratch game for a chance to win one of four cash prizes.

So where can you get in on the fun next? On May 28, we’ll be at the John Wayne Birthday Celebration in Winterset. That will be followed with a stop on May 29 at the Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn. And on May 30, we’ll be at the Great Okoboji Wing Ding in Arnolds Park.

Hope to see you there! There’s a lot to see and do this summer in Iowa!

Hello, Council Bluffs and Burlington!

This weekend will be your first chance to visit one of our “Silver Ticket Cash Stops” and enter the contests we’ll have for cash prizes!

We made the announcement last month about our summer project with the Iowa Tourism Office, and now the first of the 25 “must-see” events of the spring and summer are almost here.

On Saturday, our Silver Ticket Cash Stop tour will make its debut at the Celebrate CB festival in Council Bluffs. We’ll be inside the Main Street Café (102 S. Main St.) and you can enter our contest from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Then, we’ll announce the winners of the contest’s four cash prizes at 1:45 p.m. at the Performance Dome in Bayliss Park.

On Sunday, we’ll be at the PZAZZ! Great American Grill-Off in Burlington. We’ll be on the Party Patio at the PZAZZ! Entertainment Complex (3001 Winegard Dr.) and you can enter our contest from 1:30-4 p.m. Then we’ll announce the winners of the contest’s four cash prizes at 4:30 p.m. on the stage at the Party Patio.

During each Cash Stop, you can enter nonwinning tickets in “The Silver Ticket” instant-scratch game for a chance to win one of four cash prizes ($100, $150, $250 and $500).

So why are we doing all this? Well, the game is called The Silver Ticket and our entire theme is silver because the Lottery is turning 25 this year!

Legislation authorizing a lottery in Iowa was signed into law on April 18, 1985, and the Iowa Lottery sold its first tickets during a kick-off celebration on Aug. 22, 1985, at the Iowa State Fair.

It’s our anniversary, but it’s your celebration! We hope to see you while we’re out and about!

Can Group Winners Claim Unequal Shares?

In my blog entry on April 29, I answered the question about whether winners in a group can choose the cash AND annuity options. Here’s the next question along that same line: Can winners who are part of a group claim shares of the prize that are not equal?

Here’s an example: Let’s say Mom, Dad and their kids all play Powerball together. But they’ve always said that if they hit it big, Mom and Dad will claim a larger share of the winnings, while the kids will each get a smaller share.

But can they actually do that? The quick answer is yes, of course. But here’s the explanation:

Remember that when you claim a lottery prize at one of our offices (and that is where all Iowa Lottery prizes of more than $600 are claimed), we only issue one check for the winnings. If you’re part of a group of 25, you don’t get 25 checks. You’ll just get one check and your group decides how you’ll divide the money from there.

And if you want to claim different portions of the prize, you do that while you’re filling out IRS Form 5754. All members of a group claiming a lottery prize sign that form to divide up the taxable income liability for the prize. Each person states on the form how much of the prize he/she is claiming. So if you’re only claiming $5,000 of the prize and somebody else is claiming $10,000 and still someone else is claiming $20,000, that’s perfectly fine. Just write that on the form and you’ll be good to go. (And you’ll need to make sure the money actually is divided up that way, of course!)

Will Iowa Have A $2 Million Powerball Winner?

In the midst of the run of $1 million winners we’re seeing here in Iowa, now comes a chance for you to win up to $2 million with the Power Play option in Powerball!   

So the question is, will Iowa see its first $2 million Powerball® winner this month?

The thing that’s making it all possible is the Power Play 10X promotion. The Power Play® feature normally gives Powerball players the chance to multiply their non-jackpot Powerball winnings by 2, 3, 4 or 5 times for an additional $1 per play. At the beginning of each Powerball drawing, an animated spinner presents that night’s multiplier number.   

But as of Saturday, one of the four 5X multipliers in the Power Play feature has been replaced with a 10X. If the 10X is selected, that means Powerball prizes will be multiplied by 10 times. Here are a couple examples: If a player wins a $100 prize and the Power Play number is 10, that player would win $1,000. And, a $200,000 prize with the 10X would be multiplied to $2 million. (Jackpot prizes are not eligible for the Power Play option.)

The Power Play 10X promotion started with Saturday night’s drawing. The last eligible drawing will be Saturday, May 29, as long as the 10X has come up at least once during the month of May. If a 10X has not come up during that time, the promotion will continue until a 10X is drawn.

At the end of the promotion, the 10X will be removed, leaving the original 2X, 3X, 4X and 5X multipliers.

Iowa Lottery players have won 13 $1 million prizes since January 2008, and six of those winners took home their prizes from Powerball with the Power Play.

Here’s a breakdown of what 10X prizes look like for the promotion: