ialottery blog

Marion Man Wins $150,000 Powerball Prize

A Marion man has claimed a $150,000 Powerball® prize today with a ticket he purchased at a Cedar Rapids supermarket. To give you a look at a ticket winning a big prize, I’ve included a picture here of that lucky slip of paper.

As you can see, Jerome Thurmon’s ticket came within one number of having at least a share of the $91.6 million jackpot in last Wednesday’s Powerball drawing (Oct. 21). One of the plays on Jerome’s easy-pick ticket matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball to initially win a $50,000 prize. But because he also added the Power Play® option to his ticket, his prize was multiplied to $150,000.

The winning numbers in the Oct. 21 drawing were: 1-3-13-44-56 and Powerball 26. The Power Play number was 3. The jackpot has continued to climb since then and now stands at an estimated $116 million annuity, $89.5 million cash option, for tomorrow night’s drawing.

Jerome bought his winning ticket at the store where he works, the Hy-Vee at 1556 First Ave. NE in Cedar Rapids. Hy-Vee will receive a $150 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the $150,000-winning ticket at one of its stores.

Ticket Purchased In Cedar Rapids Wins $150,000 Powerball Prize

 

Someone who bought a Powerball® ticket in Cedar Rapids won a $150,000 prize in last night’s drawing.

The $150,000-winning ticket was purchased at the Hy-Vee supermarket at 1556 First Ave. NE in Cedar Rapids. The ticket came within one number of having at least a share of last night’s $91.6 million jackpot.

The Cedar Rapids ticket matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball to initially win a $50,000 prize. But whoever bought the winning ticket also added the Power Play® option to the purchase, which multiplied the prize to $150,000.

Last night’s winning numbers were: 1-3-13-44-56 and Powerball 26. The Power Play number was 3. No one matched all six numbers to win the jackpot, so the big prize climbs to an estimated $102 million annuity ($80.7 million cash option) for Saturday.

Hy-Vee will receive a $150 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the $150,000-winning ticket at one of its stores.

Prizes of $150,000 can be claimed at any of the Iowa Lottery’s regional offices, which are open Monday through Friday and currently offer prize claims by appointment. To make an appointment, the winner or winners of the Cedar Rapids prize should call the lottery at 319-395-9313 or 515-725-7900.

In Plain Speak: New Tools To Help You Play Smart & Be Informed About The Lottery

We’ve been working for a while now on two new tools that have just gone live to help you best understand the details about playing the lottery.

Think of it this way: You wouldn’t buy a new vehicle or even a phone without first doing your research. So just like you gather information in other areas of your life, you can choose to be informed when you play the lottery by using the new tools.

One of them is a new section that just debuted today on the Iowa Lottery website. The eight-page section, called “Play Smart, Be Informed,” is a player’s guide to help you make informed decisions when you play the lottery.

The section includes details about how to play within your means, understand the odds in lottery games, and be a responsible winner. It also includes a list of common myths vs. the facts about lotteries and an interactive quiz you can take to see how you’re doing in understanding the details. We designed the quiz so that after taking it, you’ll receive a score like those from the classroom: 100 percent, 80 percent, etc. You can translate your numerical score into a corresponding grade (A-F), and decide if you need to keep studying. 

The section concludes with a page that focuses on what you can do if you think your lottery play has gotten beyond your control. The page includes this central statement: “If you’re worried that you’re spending too much on lottery tickets, or feel like playing the lottery is causing you stress or making you unhappy, don’t do it.”

A link to the new Play Smart, Be Informed section is in the grey footer area at the bottom of all pages on our website.

The other new tool designed to encourage informed decisions is on our lottery self-service kiosks and terminals in the 2,400 businesses in Iowa where lottery
tickets are sold. It’s a new “Play Responsibly” icon. By touching the icon, you can print a message about the help available in Iowa for problem gambling.

We recognize that it can be hard to have a conversation about problem gambling. So, by using the icon on a lottery self-service kiosk, you can print out a message that describes the many ways that help can be accessed in Iowa. The message states: “If you worry that you’re playing beyond your means or just have questions about problem gambling, help is available 24/7 here in Iowa through live chat, text, email or phone. Visit yourlifeiowa.org or call 1-800-BETS OFF. At the Iowa Lottery, we mean it: Playing smart is a lot more fun.”

The new Play Responsibly icon also has been added to the screens of Iowa Lottery terminals, and retail employees can use it to print out the same message.

Knowing that some people might worry whether use of the new icon is being monitored, we specifically programmed it so it can’t be tracked. We will not know how many times the icon is utilized, or from where that happens. We hope that decision can help clear the way for the information to make it at the right time to someone who needs it.

Player Comment: Hey, Your Crossword Games Don’t Follow The Rules …

A woman who recently emailed us pointed out that our Crossword scratch games don’t follow the same rules as traditional Crossword games. We let her know that’s correct, and if they did, players could end up missing out on a prize. Here’s why.

It appears that the woman had seen a list of guidelines online for crossword puzzle creators. But our Crossword scratch games have a purposefully different play style.

In a traditional crossword puzzle, all the spaces are blank, and the player uses the clues given to fill in the words that they think are correct and fit the spaces provided. But a word they choose may or may not be the correct answer within the overall puzzle.

In our Crossword scratch tickets, the words are already provided in the play area. As the player, you scratch off only those letters found in the “YOUR LETTERS” section of the play area. If the selection provided in “YOUR LETTERS” allows you to uncover a certain number of words on your Crossword ticket, you win a prize as indicated on the ticket.

If our Crossword tickets had only blank spaces on them, you as the player could end up filling in an incorrect word, which ultimately could cause you to miss out on a prize.

The rules governing our scratch games are published on our website. To see the rules for a specific Crossword scratch game, visit the scratch games page on our site and click on the game you want to play. When that individual game loads, you'll see a blue link to the official game rules for it.

BIG Start To The Week! Prizes Of $276,296 And $300,000 Claimed On Same Day

Maybe Mondays aren’t so bad after all! Our week started out with a definite rush as two players both claimed big prizes within about an hour of each other.

First up was Marissa Besler of Monticello, who claimed one of the top prizes in our “Colossal Crossword” scratch game. Her $300,000 win was quickly followed by Don Burd of Hiawatha, who claimed a jackpot of $276,296 in the “Extreme Green Progressive” InstaPlay game. That’s the biggest prize ever won in an InstaPlay game since the product debuted four years ago in Iowa!

The same theme runs through Marissa and Don’s stories: Disbelief.

Marissa is 34 and an occupational therapist assistant. She said she was shocked when she realized she’d won $300,000 on a lottery ticket she scratched while waiting on a load of laundry. She said she wandered around her house for a while to catch her breath, then downloaded the Iowa Lottery app on her phone so she could scan her ticket, which she bought at Great Pastimes in Monticello. The app verified her win and she said she was in even more disbelief!

Marissa has some real-world plans for her winnings: She said that having no mortgage or a car payment will be a huge weight off her shoulders.

In Don’s case, it was his wife who initially couldn’t believe he’d won a giant InstaPlay prize. Don said he bought a handful of tickets in the Extreme Green Progressive game on Sunday and realized that one of them had won the game’s jackpot, which had climbed to $276,296. He said he called his wife, Shawnee, right away to share the news. He told her he’d hit the game’s jackpot and then said how much it was. He said she really didn’t believe him, but it was definitely real!

Burd, 56, who owns the Otter Creek Country Store in Robins where bought his winning ticket, said he’s still figuring out exactly what he’ll do with his winnings. But he'll definitely continue to help a good cause in his area. Burd donates the fuel needed by his local fire department to help support its critical work.

Congratulations, Marissa and Don! Thanks for helping our week get off to a great start. Woo-hoo, indeed!

‘Winner Wonderland’ Promotion Has Started Today, With $640,000 In Prizes

The biggest prize pool ever offered in one of our holiday promotions is up for grabs in our “Winner Wonderland®” promotion that just opened for entries today.

The promotion features 181 cash prizes totaling $640,000, including a grand prize of $250,000. We’re applying the “max bet” concept in the promotion, meaning that the size of the prize players can win increases along with the purchase price of the scratch ticket they’ve entered.

Players could start making entries in Winner Wonderland at 9 a.m. today, and the promotion runs through early January, with its final drawing date on Jan. 7.

Players can enter the promotion using non-winning tickets in the 13 holiday-themed scratch tickets we’ll have available this year. Tickets in six of those games started sales last week, and they’ll be followed by five more on Oct. 5 and the final two on Nov. 2.

In each of the promotion’s three initial drawings, 60 prizes will be awarded: 20 prizes of $500 from among the $1 and $2 entries; 20 prizes of $1,000 from among the $3 and $5 entries; and 20 prizes of $5,000 from among the $10 and $20 entries.

The initial drawings will be on Nov. 5, Dec. 3 and Jan. 7, with the $250,000 grand-prize drawing also on Jan. 7.

Entries will not carry over from one drawing to the next, except for the grand-prize drawing.
All entries submitted over the course of the promotion that are not selected as a winner in one of the initial drawings will automatically be eligible for the grand-prize drawing.

Ticket Purchased In Eastern Iowa Wins Biggest InstaPlay Jackpot Yet

Someone who bought an InstaPlay ticket in Linn County has won the largest jackpot to date in the games since they began being sold in Iowa nearly four years ago.

A ticket purchased at the Otter Creek Country Store, 3445 County Home Road in Robins, has won a jackpot of $276,296 in the Extreme Green Progressive InstaPlay game. That’s the largest jackpot ever won in an InstaPlay game.

A prize of that size has to be claimed at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive, where prize claims are currently being handled by appointment due to COVID-19. If the winner or winners have questions before coming forward to claim the prize, they’re welcome to reach out to us at the lottery at 515-725-7900 or by email at wmaster@ialottery.com.

The Robins jackpot is a big jump up from the previous record jackpot in an InstaPlay game. That prize – $173,725 in the JACKPOT PARTY® Progressive InstaPlay game – was won in July 2018 by a central Iowa man. Nick Keeling of Norwalk claimed that prize with a ticket he bought at an Indianola gas station.

Extreme Green Progressive is a $20 InstaPlay game. Its jackpot starts at starts at $20,000 and grows with each ticket sold statewide in the game. The game's jackpot had been growing since late July, when it was won with a ticket purchased in Clear Lake.

The amount of the starting jackpot in our InstaPlay progressive games varies by game and price point. As you might anticipate, higher price-point games have a higher starting jackpot amount and those jackpots grow more quickly. Back in May, I blogged about how the progressive jackpot amounts are determined, so feel free to check out those details if you’ve wondered the same thing.

We’re Moving Prize Claims Back Inside Our Offices

As we continue to safely find our way forward during this COVID-19 emergency, we’re making a change starting today in the way prizes can be claimed at the Iowa Lottery’s offices. After a summer of curbside prize claims outside, we’re bringing prize claims back inside our offices by appointment, with some restrictions that apply.

The video above walks you through the process so you’ll know what to expect if you come to see us to claim an Iowa Lottery prize in person. But please remember that we also have other prize-claim options available, understanding that some folks may not feel comfortable with in-person appointments right now. You can continue to mail or ship tickets to us in most instances, and you also have the option of using the secure dropbox at lottery headquarters in Clive.

To make a prize-claim appointment, please call the lottery office where you want to claim your prize to schedule a time and receive other details, including the documentation you’ll need to have with you. Here are our telephone numbers:

Clive: 515-725-7900
Cedar Rapids: 319-395-9313
Mason City: 641-424-6011
Storm Lake: 712-732-6662

If you’re claiming a prize on behalf of a group or have friends or family coming with you, please know that to help maintain social distancing, only the person claiming the prize will be allowed inside the lottery office.