ialottery blog

3X the Sizzle,’ Hot Lotto® Revamp & Other Jackpot News

We’ve got all kinds of jackpot news to talk about right now! Here’s a quick rundown:

You’ve probably heard that the Powerball® jackpot is really getting up there. It’s reached an estimated $350 million for Wednesday’s drawing. That’s the third-largest jackpot in the history of the game. Not too shabby!

And Mega Millions® also is rolling, with that jackpot growing to an estimated $170 million for tomorrow night’s drawing.

And then there’s Hot Lotto®, which just got a make-over and has a new promo offering prizes of free gas to go along with its new look. We blogged about those changes for the first time back in early April, but here are those details again:

Hot Lotto’s make-over took effect yesterday, upgrading the jackpot to a cash-only prize with withholding taxes paid. That means that if the advertised jackpot is $2 million, the winner will receive a one-time, lump-sum payment for that full amount. To be more specific, the current Hot Lotto jackpot is an estimated $6.16 million for Wednesday’s drawing. If you match all six numbers and are the only winner nationwide for that big prize, you will take home $6.16 million.

The revamped game is being introduced with a special promotion offering 85 prizes of free gas. The “3X the Sizzle” promotion means players can purchase three Hot Lotto plays with the Sizzler for $5 (a regular $6 value) and have the chance to enter a drawing for up to $500 in free gas.

When you purchase a 3X the Sizzle ticket, the lottery terminal will automatically generate a trailing ticket containing a special code that you’ll need to enter on the lottery website for a chance to win ethanol promotional checks for free fuel from the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

You can purchase 3X the Sizzle tickets through July 13 and enter the promotion until noon on July 23 at www.ialottery.com.

We’ll select 85 winners of ethanol checks in a drawing July 25. Fifty players will each win $100 in ethanol checks for free gas; 25 each will win $250 in checks; and 10 each will win $500 in checks.

The numbers available to play in Hot Lotto have changed with the new version of the game. You now choose five balls from a pool of 47 (it was 39) and another number, called the Hot Ball®, from a separate pool of 19 (unchanged). The minimum Hot Lotto jackpot is $1 million cash with state and federal withholding taxes paid, and grows until someone wins it.

Beautiful, Busy Weekend of FUN!

The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend! So, while you’re out and about enjoying Iowa’s beautiful (if belated) springtime, don’t forget these lottery details: 

If you want to enter for a chance to win a $300 gift card to one of five Iowa getaways in our Destination Iowa promotion, time is running out!

You have until noon on Monday to get your nonwinning Bass Pro Shops® scratch tickets entered online in your VIP Club account. That’s the ticket that lets you pick which of the five fabulous destinations you’d like to visit. There’s Honey Creek Resort State Park on Rathbun Lake in South-central Iowa, Café Dodici and Dodici Night Suite in Washington, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Historic Park Inn Hotel in Mason City, King’s Pointe Waterpark Resort in Storm Lake or Harrah’s Council Bluffs Casino and Hotel.

The five Destination Iowa winners will be drawn on Wednesday. So keep your fingers crossed!

And, as if that’s not enough fun for you, some big jackpots are on the line this weekend, too! Tonight’s Mega Millions® jackpot is at an estimated $103 million. And Saturday’s jackpots for Hot Lotto® and Powerball® are big, too. Hot Lotto is at an estimated $5.28 million and Powerball has reached an estimated $140 million! Man, that’s a lot of dough!

So get out there and have some fun already, no matter what you’re doing this weekend!

Hot Lotto® Game Being Redesigned

An updated version of the Hot Lotto game will debut next month along with a special promotion tied to the game that will offer prizes of free gas.

Starting May 12, Hot Lotto’s jackpot will be a cash-only prize with withholding taxes paid. That means that if the advertised jackpot is $2 million, the winner will receive a one-time, lump-sum payment for that full amount.

The revamped game will be introduced with a special promotion this spring and summer offering 85 prizes of free gas. The “3X the Sizzle” promotion will mean players can purchase three Hot Lotto plays with the Sizzler for $5 (a regular $6 value) and have the chance to enter a drawing for up to $500 in free gas.

Taxes are something we hear about a lot when it comes to lottery prizes. And we’ve also heard players say they’d like to see cash jackpots with the withholding taxes paid. We’re excited to be offering that very feature when we re-launch Hot Lotto next month.

The numbers available to play in Hot Lotto will change with the new version of the game. Players will choose five balls from a pool of 47 (currently 39) and another number, called the Hot Ball®, from a separate pool of 19 (unchanged). The minimum Hot Lotto jackpot will be $1 million cash with state and federal withholding taxes paid, and will grow until someone wins it. Hot Lotto jackpot winners currently can choose to receive the prize in annuitized payments over 25 years or as a one-time cash payment, with state and federal withholding applied in either instance.

Hot Lotto plays will still cost $1, and the Sizzler option, which triples non-jackpot prizes, will still cost an extra $1 per play. And you’ll still be able to choose your own numbers or let the computer randomly select them.

In addition to the change in the jackpot, several other prize levels in the game also are increasing. The eight non-jackpot prize levels in the redesigned game will range from $2 (unchanged) for matching the Hot Ball alone, up to $30,000 (currently $10,000) for matching the first five numbers but missing the Hot Ball. All nonjackpot prizes will still triple with the Sizzler option, meaning a player would win $90,000 for matching the first five numbers with the Sizzler option added.
 
And here are the details about the upcoming promotion: When you purchase a 3X the Sizzle ticket, the lottery terminal will automatically generate a trailing ticket containing a special code that you can enter on the lottery website for a chance to win ethanol promotional checks for free fuel from the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

You can purchase 3X the Sizzle tickets from May 12 through July 13, and can enter the promotion until noon on July 23 at www.ialottery.com.

We’ll select 85 winners of ethanol checks in a drawing July 25. Fifty players will each win $100 in ethanol checks for free gas; 25 each will win $250 in checks; and 10 each will win $500 in checks.
One more detail: The number of Hot Lotto drawings that you can purchase plays for in advance will decrease as we move toward the start of the revamped game. It will go back to the usual 10 drawings in advance once the redesign takes effect. We have to do that to make sure everyone has tickets with the right numbers available once the new game debuts.

Forfeited Jackpot Generating More Headlines

That jackpot that was claimed for a few days but ultimately forfeited last year here in Des Moines is generating more national news headlines.

The latest round hit this week. Click here to read today’s ABC News take on the story!

Will we ever know what really happened there? We’ll see as the investigation continues …

News Of Iowa Winner’s Purchase Goes National

A recent purchase by an Iowa jackpot winner is making national news in the world of sports. He's even got a magazine spread. That's because it wasn't just any purchase.

Wally Markham used part of his Hot Lotto winnings to buy the local golf course where he was a member, saving the club from a downhill slide following enormous damage from the 2008 floods in eastern Iowa.

Markham, a retiree from the Deere & Co. plant in Waterloo, won a $7.5 million Hot Lotto jackpot in November 2011. He said at the time that he planned to invest a large part of his winnings -- and he's done that.

But it turns out that another opportunity also would come his way, as detailed in the current January 2013 edition of GOLF Magazine. Click here to read GOLF Magazine's take on the story of Wally Markham and the La Porte City Golf Club.

And The Big 'Mystery Millionaire' Winners Are…

There’s no mystery left in our “Mystery Millionaire”! We now know exactly who the big winners were in our live finale event on Extreme Sunday at the Iowa State Fair. It was a sea of yellow Mystery Millionaire T-shirts out there!

Click on the video above to see all the fun from yesterday’s give-away on the fairgrounds’ Grand Concourse. And, a complete list of all the prizes won by contestants, audience members and retailers is available here.

Entry Deadline Hits Tomorrow In ‘Mystery Millionaire’

Time is running out for you to enter any eligible tickets you’ve got for the “Mystery Millionaire” promotion!

Sales have been good in the promo, with players making more than 223,000 eligible purchases during the sales period from July 1 through noon Saturday.

But our records show that thousands of those eligible tickets still haven’t been entered in the promotion – and there’s less than a day to go.

As of this morning, more than 184,000 tickets had been entered. That leaves more than 38,000 out there, and if you’re one of those people, we don’t want you to miss out on your chance to win up to $1 million!

Codes have to be entered on the lottery’s website by noon tomorrow to be eligible. Remember that you can use each ticket only once as an entry and you don’t have to keep your bonus Mystery Millionaire entry tickets once they’ve been entered.

The next step in the process comes Thursday, when we’ll select 49 winning tickets from among all those entered. Thirty-four players will immediately win prizes of $10,000 each. The 15 others will advance to the Mystery Millionaire Giveaway on Aug. 19 at the Iowa State Fair. Each of those contestants will win at least $25,000 during a live finale event and could win the grand prize of $1 million.

There will be prizes for audience members that day as well, so don’t miss out on the fun!

Your Time Is Almost Up! Mystery Millionaire Promotion Ending Soon

Entries for our current "Mystery Millionaire" promotion continue to roll in, but players only have a few more days to purchase their tickets.

You have until 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, which is July 28, to purchase a special $5 Mystery Millionaire pack from your favorite Iowa Lottery retailer. So far we've seen over 100,000 entries, but we won't know final numbers until the end of the promotion.

In case you haven't purchased the pack yet, here's a reminder of what you'll get: an easy-pick Powerball with Power Play ticket, an easy-pick Hot Lotto Sizzler ticket, and along with those, a bonus Mystery Millionaire entry ticket with a code you'll enter on the lottery's website at www.ialottery.com.

If you do make an error, we cannot change the entries after they have been submitted for security purposes. But we will post the winners' information exactly as it was received when they entered. So if your name is selected, you should recognize the information when it is posted to our website.

On Aug. 2, the lottery will select 49 winning tickets in the promotion. Thirty-four of players whose entries are selected will win prizes of $10,000 each. The other 15 will advance to the Mystery Millionaire Giveaway on Aug. 19 at the Iowa State Fair. Each of the contestants at the Fair will win at least $25,000 and could win the grand prize of $1 million!

But lottery players aren't the only ones who can win big in the promotion - we'll also have prizes for the retailers that sell the winning tickets and the audience members at our live event.

The 15 semifinalists who attend the State Fair event each will receive four admission tickets to the Fair; two parking passes; hotel stay for two; admission for two to an exclusive dinner on Saturday, Aug. 18; and spending cash.

Here’s the run-down on our event at the Fair: The first 1,000 audience members who check in at the live show site on the Grand Concourse will get tickets to attend the give-away. Fifteen people in the audience that day will win prizes ranging from $250 to $1,000. And the retailers whose locations sell the winning tickets to the 15 semi-finalists on the stage at that live give-away show will win prizes from $500 up to $2,000.

The clock is ticking! Get your entries in today!

Common Questions About "Mystery Millionaire"

Now that we’ve kicked off our "Mystery Millionaire" promotion, we've gotten some great questions through our Webmaster email account as well as Facebook and Twitter.
 
When any of us is entering information online, sometimes our eyes can skip over slight mistakes. We've had a few players write or call in to us and ask if we can correct mistakes in spelling, phone numbers or addresses they made when entering Mystery Millionaire on the lottery’s website.
 
The short answer is no, we cannot do that. And here's why: As part of the security and integrity of the Iowa Lottery, we help protect our players by keeping their information private. Because of that, we cannot change your Mystery Millionaire entries after they have been submitted.
 
However, after the drawing has occurred, we will post the winners’ information exactly as it was received when it was entered. So if your name is selected, you should recognize the winners' list when it is posted to our website. If your name is selected, feel free to contact Lottery headquarters at 515-725-7900.
 
While we do make efforts to contact our winners, ultimately it is their responsibility to contact the Lottery to claim their prizes.
 
We've also had a few players tell us the website is not accepting their 13-digit Mystery Millionaire code. It's important that you take your time entering the code, as it can be easy to transpose numbers.
 
Finally, we had a great question come in about entering your personal information. When you enter promotions through the Lottery's VIP Club, your information will automatically populate in the entry form for you. Some of you have noticed that is not the case with Mystery Millionaire. That is because this particular promotion is not being run through the VIP Club. However, if you have more than one code to enter at once, there is a link at the bottom of the entry form that says "Enter more codes." Just click on that so you don't have to enter your information each time.
 
Just a reminder: You have until July 28 to purchase your $5 Mystery Millionaire pack and we're accepting entries until noon on July 31. You can check out all the rules and information on our website. Good luck!

Lottery Luck Bursting in Council Bluffs

Someone has got to be holding a leprechaun captive in Council Bluffs for all the luck we’ve seen over there lately!

We’ve written before about towns that have had a run of lottery luck, producing a series of winners in a short period of time.

If we hear the urban myth that “no one from here ever wins” coming from anyone in Council Bluffs, we’re going to laugh!

Since Aug. 1 of last year, a total of 20 major lottery winners have come out of Council Bluffs! In both April and June of this year, Council Bluffs saw $1 million Powerball® winners. And last week, Jerry Paulsen from Council Bluffs won a $100,000 prize playing Iowa’s $100,000 Cash Game.

Overall, in less than one year, lottery winners from the Council Bluffs area have taken home more than $2.5 million in prizes!

We want to give a shout-out to our latest lottery winner from Council Bluffs – Earl Sapp who won a $30,000 prize in the June 23 Hot Lotto® drawing.

So, next time you’re on our western border, grab yourself a ticket! It just might be your lucky day.