Out-of-State Promotion Winners

We got a great question in our Webmaster email account recently that I thought would be interesting to share here on the blog.

Brian wrote to us and asked, “Why is it that out-of-state people can win in your promotions?”

Brian isn’t the first person to ask the question, and I’m sure he won’t be the last. When it comes to promotions, we do try to offer different promotions that fit different players’ play styles and personalities. We have several promotions that are restricted to Iowa-only players, and some that aren’t. For instance, when we have retailer promotions, only those people living in that area will be able to etner, just from a geographic standpoint. Further, when we have retailer promotions, only those people living in that area will be able to enter, just from a geographic standpoint.

When it comes to scratch tickets, anyone passing through Iowa may purchase and play a game from a licensed Iowa Lottery retailer. We decided to offer our VIP Club to anyone who plays Iowa Lottery scratch games, and many other lotteries across the nation do the same. We are providing merchandise and trip packages as prizes this time around, so out-of-state players are eligible.
 
As far as drawings go, we use a secure system to randomly draw winners’ names using a computer program. That program is monitored by our own security staff, as well as outside auditors. We can assure you that the drawings are 100% random, and we think you’ll see that with the drawing results in the second round of our “Winter of Winners” promotion. We have winners from all over the state, and in this case, one person from Nebraska also won in the second drawing in our Winter of Winners promotion. In our Rock of Ages promotion last year, the top-prize winner had only one entry! It’s just the luck of the draw.

Brian said that covered his question, and we were happy to give him that info. If you’ve got questions about our promotions or anything else, you can always shoot us an email at WMaster@ialottery.com or catch us on Twitter, Facebook or this blog.

Comments

[Tammy Green]

Where is the fairness in employees of retailers getting to collect up all of the "losing" scratch off tickets and enter them for points to get prizes? I think that they should be exempt as I will take forever to get enough points for anything I am looking at and an employee at a retailer said he gets at least 2000 points a week by just taking the losers from the customers and using them. Might I say that I don't even go to the store without buying scratch offs, because I like to play them. However I wouldn't mind reaping some sort of benefit from all of the money I spend on losers.