ialottery blog

Bball Tourney Tickets Up For Grabs In Our New Promo

 

Three years ago, we gave players the chance to win tournament tickets for men’s college hoops in Des Moines, and it was such a hit, we’re doing it again.

 

The “Suite Seats” promotion began at 9 a.m. today and for the next six weeks, Iowa Lottery players can enter nonwinning tickets from three eligible scratch games for a chance to win suite tickets to the 2019 men’s college basketball tournament at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.

 

In all, 48 winners will each score a pair of tickets for seats in an exclusive lottery suite at the regional men’s basketball tournament games on Thursday, March 21, or Saturday, March 23, at Wells Fargo Arena. Besides winning some sweet/suite seats, the winners will get food, beverages and a parking pass – everything they’ll need for a fun time at the tournament! Each prize package is valued at nearly $900.

 

Players can enter the promotion using nonwinning tickets from these three $10 scratch games: “Diamond 9s,” “$1,000 Loaded,” and “Spectacular Riches.” Diamond 9s hit store shelves back on Aug. 6, while $1,000 Loaded and Spectacular Riches are new games that debuted Jan. 3.

 

Eligible tickets can be entered in the promotion through 8:59 a.m. Feb. 25. There will be just one drawing, on Feb. 26, and 48 ticket packages will be awarded. The first 16 winners will get tickets for Session 1 games at the tournament on Thursday, March 21; the next 16 will get tickets for Session 2 games that same day; and the final 16 will get tickets for Session 3 games on Saturday, March 23.

 

A player can win only one ticket prize package in the drawing. To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. And remember that you can enter through the VIP Club website or by scanning tickets on our LotteryPlus mobile app! 

 

This will be Des Moines’ second time as a regional hosting city. It got good reviews during its first run in 2016.  

 

Here’s a table with the Suite Seats drawing schedule and prize details:

 

Seriously. Is It YOU? Unclaimed $1 Million Powerball Prize Hits 9-Month Mark

As of today, it’s been nine months since a $1 million Powerball prize was won in central Iowa, and it’s still unclaimed.

Someone bought the lucky ticket at Casey’s, 1800 S. B Ave. in Nevada, for the Powerball drawing on April 11, 2018, and ended up matching the first five numbers but missing the Powerball that night to win the $1 million prize. In a community of about 6,800, we know people have been talking about it! The staff at the Casey’s store say it’s something they’re asked about nearly every day.     

Since the prize was won, we’ve held a news conference at the store, put up signs there, and issued several other reminders, all in the hope that we’d jog the winner’s memory and they’d come to lottery headquarters with the lucky ticket. But so far, we’ve heard nothing but crickets!

There’s still time to claim the prize. Players have 365 days from the date of the drawing to claim Powerball prizes here in Iowa. So, the $1 million prize must be claimed at our headquarters office in Clive by 4 p.m. on April 11. But with more and more time going by, we’re afraid that the ticket may have been lost or thrown away. We’re reminding everyone to double-check their tickets. Heck, triple- and quadruple-check them! 

The winning numbers in the drawing on April 11, 2018, were: 16-18-27-55-67 and Powerball 18. The Power Play number was 3.

So what will happen to the money if the prize isn’t claimed in time? Here in Iowa, unclaimed prize money goes into the lottery’s prize pools for future games and promotions. So, it will be used for prizes, just not that particular prize that expired.     

Winning a prize of this size can raise questions for the winner(s). If you think you have the winning ticket, you’re welcome to reach out to us at 515-725-7900 or wmaster@ialottery.com.

Hey, That Store Didn’t Let Me Use A Debit Card

A western Iowa man contacted us after a store said he couldn’t use a debit card to buy lottery tickets and he wondered if that was okay. The quick answer is yes, but there’s more to the story.

Here in Iowa, state law allows lottery tickets to be purchased with cash, debit cards, checks and gift cards, but a retail location isn’t REQUIRED to accept any form of payment if it chooses not to do so. Real-world issues including card fees and payment verification are part of the picture for our retailers, and we understand that. Locations have their own payment policies, so check with the store involved if you have questions.

Another important caveat I will give is that it is illegal in Iowa for credit cards to be used to purchase lottery tickets.

2 Powerball Prizes Of $100,000 Won At Stores Less Than 2 Miles Apart

It’s a week where we’ve seen patterns emerge here at the lottery! On Monday, I blogged about two winners who both talked about fake tickets as they claimed their prizes. (Their tickets were real, and they both took home big prizes). Today, a different pattern has jumped out at us: Two big Powerball prizes were won in the past week at central Iowa stores less than 2 miles apart!

Yesterday, Jacob Carpenter of Des Moines claimed a $100,000 prize he won in last Saturday’s Powerball drawing with a ticket he bought at Casey’s, 2070 NW 100th St. in Clive.

And in Wednesday’s Powerball drawing, someone who bought a ticket at the QuikTrip at 9915 Douglas Ave. in Urbandale also won a $100,000 prize. That ticket is still unclaimed.

We mapped it out, and the two stores are a little more than a mile apart.

Both tickets initially won $50,000 by matching four of the first five numbers and the Powerball. But the Power Play option had been added to both tickets and the Power Play number in both drawings was 2, so the $50,000 prizes doubled to $100,000.

Congrats on your big win, Jacob! And we’re excited to meet the winner of the $100,000 prize from Urbandale when that person comes forward!

Nope, Those Tickets AREN’T Fakes!

Similar reactions from two of our recent winners caught my attention because they both referenced fake lottery tickets.

First up was Don Burd of Hiawatha, who claimed a progressive InstaPlay jackpot of more than $64,000 on Dec. 24. Don said his initial thought when he saw his winning ticket was that someone must have given him a phony one because there’s no way he would be so lucky. But it wasn’t a fake and Don WAS lucky, taking home a prize of $64,494 on Christmas Eve.

Then a couple days later, we met Laci Kane of Prairie City, who claimed a $50,000 scratch-game prize on Dec. 26. Laci said she won her big prize by buying some lottery tickets to help pass the time while she and her husband drove back from a family Christmas gathering in western Iowa. She told us she was looking forward to showing her family her ceremonial check as evidence of her win because none of them believed her news! She said they all thought it was a fake.

So, while fake lottery tickets do exist and people have been known to give them as a joke, Don and Laci’s tickets were real! And they both have something extra to celebrate for the holidays.

The Holiday Prize Rush Is ON Here At The Lottery!

I don’t know if it’s something in the water, or if it’s because people have been saving up their tickets for awhile, but whatever the reason, winners have kept us BUSY at the Iowa Lottery in the past couple days.

On Monday, Iowa Lottery players claimed 19 prizes of $900 or more, including the largest prize claimed that day, a $100,000 top prize in the “Star” scratch game.

Our offices were closed yesterday for the Christmas holiday, but we’ve been off to the races again today! Lottery players in Iowa claimed a total of 28 prizes today of $800 or more. The largest prize claimed today was one of the top prizes of $300,000 in the “Colossal Crossword” scratch game.

And in addition to the prizes that have already been claimed, a “JACKPOT PARTY® Progressive” InstaPlay jackpot also was won this afternoon in Coralville. The winner of that $11,508 prize, won with a ticket purchased at Keystone Liquor & Wine, 517 Second St. in Coralville, has not yet come forward to claim it.

JACKPOT PARTY® and © 2018 Bally Gaming, Inc. All rights reserved.

Big Jackpot On The Line For Christmas!

Dec. 26 update: As we now know, Mega Millions has gone five for five with no jackpot winners in its drawings that have been held on Christmas Day. Nobody won the jackpot in last night’s drawing, so the Mega Millions top prize has climbed to an estimated $348 million annuity, $210.2 million cash option for Friday’s drawing. The next time there will be a Mega Millions drawing on Christmas will be in 2020, when Dec. 25 is on a Friday. But in 2019, Dec. 25 will be on a Wednesday, so next year there will be a Powerball drawing for Christmas! 

Jackpot drawings in our lotto games are held come rain or come shine – or as is the case tomorrow, come the Christmas holiday. And a BIG jackpot will be on the line this Christmas: the Mega Millions® jackpot has reached an estimated $321 million annuity, $193.7 million lump-sum option, for tomorrow night’s drawing.

This is just the fourth time that a Mega Millions drawing has been held on Christmas since the game’s start in 2002. (The last time was in 2015.) But so far, no one has actually won a Mega Millions jackpot on Christmas.

The game’s jackpot has been growing since it was last won in the drawing on Oct. 23. You may remember that big prize: that night’s jackpot of $1.54 billion was won with a single ticket purchased in South Carolina. The winner has not yet claimed the prize.

So, has Iowa ever seen a jackpot winner on Christmas? Our state’s very first Powerball® jackpot winner came close: Ed Brown of Washington split a $10.4 million jackpot with a Missouri woman in the Powerball drawing on Dec. 23, 1992.

And ten years later, a western Iowa man won a Hot Lotto jackpot in that game’s drawing on Christmas Day 2002. Don Sporrer of Denison waited a few weeks  before claiming his $2.7 million prize in January 2003. He said he knew the whole time that he had the winning ticket  and he had fun listening to local speculation about the identity of the winner!

Hey, Scratch-Game Fans: It’s Crossword Puzzle Day!

In case you hadn’t heard, it’s Crossword Puzzle Day. That’s according to the National Day Calendar™, the website that tracks unusual and unique National Days and has a day for just about everything.

And since Crossword has been one of our most popular scratch games here in Iowa for years and years, it definitely makes sense to us for this day to be highlighted!

We have had at least one Crossword game in our scratch-game selection for nearly 19 years. The Iowa Lottery introduced its first Crossword game clear back in March of 2000. Crossword quickly became one of our top-selling games and we’ve kept different versions of it on the market ever since because people like them so much. We would definitely hear about it if we didn’t have a Crossword game in stores!

We currently have four Crossword games for sale: the $3 “Holiday Bonus Crossword”; the $5 “$50,000 Holiday Super Crossword”; the $10 “$100,000 Holiday Mega Crossword”; and the $30 “Colossal Crossword.” When the season for our holiday-themed games ends in late December/early January, our regular Crossword games will return to store shelves.           

So, happy Crossword Puzzle Day from us here at the lottery. And if you win a prize on a Crossword ticket today, it must have been meant to be. :)

Fake ‘Terry Rich’ Account Shut Down

In a reminder that we all need to be vigilant and double-check the information we find online, we’ve just had a fake “Terry Rich” account shut down on Facebook. We’ve unfortunately seen this type of thing before, but the good news is that in most instances, it’s easy to report imposter pages or accounts and get them shut down.

In this latest instance, a Facebook page popped up in our feeds that appeared to be an account for Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich, but several of the details involved were wrong. The page, for example, stated that Terry lives in Washington, D.C., which obviously isn’t the case. It would be a tad difficult to live in D.C. and come to work every day at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive! 

So we followed Facebook’s process to report a fake page and ask that it be shut down. And we’re glad to say the process worked: That account is no longer live.

A few years ago, there also was a fake “Mary Neubauer” page out there, and it was pretty blatant in its scam attempt. Whoever had set up that page was sending direct messages on Facebook using my name. The message stated that the recipient had won a lottery jackpot and that in order to claim the prize, they needed to get a money card and then give “Mary Neubauer” the numbers on the card. (I suppose the further explanation was that the prize money would be sent to the money card. But in reality, I believe that the scammers planned to bilk the victim by cleaning out any money on the card.)
    
We also reported that page as fake at the time and got it shut down.

We've given reminders for years about the dangers of lottery scams. And, scam attempts through the years have unfortunately involved the names of several different lottery officials.

The lottery scammers are nearly impossible to trace or stop. In most instances, they operate from outside the United States using mobile operations that spoof I.P. addresses, telephone numbers and physical locations. The best thing that any of us can do is to remain vigilant and protect ourselves. NEVER send someone money who promises you a lottery prize, and NEVER share online personally-identifying information such as your Social Security number or bank account information.

We keep reminders that can help on the Player Security section of our website. Please check out those details and share them with anyone who wonders whether something they see is real or a scam.