Here’s a thought we hope you’ll keep with you as you’re shopping for gifts in the next few weeks.
Lottery tickets are popular as presents and stocking stuffers, and here at the Iowa Lottery, we want you to have fun while you're playing. But we also recognize that our tickets may not be something you want to give to those underage.
The same concept applies to other products as well. Some video games and movies aren’t appropriate for all ages due to their content. Alcohol and tobacco-related products have their own age restrictions. Even toys come with age-recommendation guidelines.
In Iowa, you have to be at least 21 years old to buy lottery tickets, and we’ve always identified our products as something for adults. Remember, you are gambling when you play the lottery.
The Iowa Lottery offers these reminders to minimize the risks associated with youth gambling: • Be sure to give youngsters age-appropriate gifts. • When you give lottery tickets as presents, please keep the person's age in mind.
Here’s an interesting winner story from this week: An eastern Iowa man won two prizes of $10,000 in the same Mega Millions® drawing with tickets from different stores.
Larry Witmer of Solon bought his easy-pick tickets a few hours apart on Tuesday for that night’s Mega Millions drawing. Five of the numbers on his plays were identical, and that’s how he ended up hitting big -- twice.
Each of Larry’s tickets matched four of the white balls and the Mega Ball® to win a $10,000 prize.
Games like Powerball® and Mega Millions are purposefully designed to allow repeat plays of the same numbers. That’s how jackpots can end up being split by multiple tickets across the country. It’s a security feature of the games and that demonstrates random selection.
In Larry’s case, his plays weren’t entirely identical, but they came close. And that random outcome had a VERY positive impact.
Here’s some exciting and unexpected news: Iowa has two of the five nationwide finalists for a $1 million prize that will be awarded in a special Powerball® drawing just after midnight in the New Year.
Iowa’s finalists have two very different stories. Shari Beenken of Titonka, a Kossuth County community of about 500, entered Powerball tickets in the promotion she purchased on her own, while Rob Long of Waterloo entered tickets he bought on behalf of a group of his co-workers, friends and family who pool their money to buy tickets. He calls the group Lotto 22.
With two players in the running, Iowa has a 40 percent chance of having the $1 million winner. The other finalists for the prize are from Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania.
Shari, 57, is an office administrator at an Algona business. She said her heart was pounding, she had tears in her eyes and she was a bit in shock when she learned she was one of the finalists.
Rob, 50, is a warehouse associate in Waterloo, He said he also was shocked by the news, but then had fun sharing the details with his group. A lot of them didn’t know he’d entered their tickets in the promotion, and he said he loved seeing the surprise on people’s faces.
Iowa and 28 other lotteries in the Powerball game participated in this year’s edition of the First Millionaire of the Year promotion, which gave players the chance to enter their Powerball tickets for a shot at more winnings. Iowa Lottery players could enter tickets into the promotion back in September, and on Sept. 30, the Iowa Lottery selected 20 of them (including Beenken and Long) as semi-finalist winners of $2,500 each.
Those 20 Iowa winners along with the semi-finalists from the other states in the promotion were all then entered into a random drawing to determine the five finalists for the $1 million prize. And Iowa ended up with two of the five!
For being selected as a finalist, Shari and Rob each will receive a $10,000 cash prize and a home party package also valued at $10,000, including a 70-inch LED TV, karaoke system, premium laptop computer, and deluxe dinner for eight.
Rob held a drawing with the help of a member of his group and his wife to determine how the Lotto 22 would split up the home entertainment package. They put all the group members’ names in a bowl and selected winners of the merchandise prizes. The group is evenly splitting the $10,000 cash prize.
Shari said that if she’s the $1 million winner, she and her husband, Rod, plan to invest a majority of the winnings. But she said she’d spend a little of the money as well. She said she’s not extravagant, but she needs a new dishwasher.
If Rob is the $1 million winner, the prize will be split amongst his group, with each member receiving about $45,500 before taxes. Rob said that his wife, Heather, would like a newer vehicle, so his share of the winnings will likely go towards that. But he also has a purchase of his own in mind.
Rob said he’s an ‘80s guy who has always loved arcade games, and he wants his own Donkey Kong machine.
Shari, Rob and the other three finalists for the $1 million prize will be in their hometowns on New Year’s Eve. The national television broadcast will check in with them throughout the night. Then just after midnight EST, the $1 million winner will be announced!
For those wondering, here are the members of the Lotto 22:
From Clarksville: Scott Herrmann and Victor Herrmann From Denver: Bruce Gonnerman From Dunkerton: Michael Nicolaus and Nancy Smock From Independence: Bryan Cain and Kristen Kayser From Jesup: Ronald Kester From La Porte City: Bruce Long From Oelwein: Ellyn Perkins From Plainfield: Valeria Marks From Raymond: Randy Ruehs From Shell Rock: Grant Clark From Waterloo: Trish Bandfield, Mark Burke, Steven Foster, Kelvin Holmes, Rob Long, Nesffy Molina, Mike O’Connor, Martin Van Horn, Eric Woodward.
A quick scheduling reminder for the next few days: Iowa Lottery offices are closed until Monday for the Thanksgiving holiday.
I hope that you have a chance to unwind this weekend, spend time with family and friends, and just enjoy the moment.
If you have a ticket winning a prize of more than $600 or need our assistance with anything else, our offices will be open again for business at 8 a.m. Monday (Nov. 29).
A familiar name just claimed $75,000 in lottery prizes – for the second time in two months!
Wiley Tuley of Cedar Rapids is someone I would describe as a true Pick 4 aficionado: He likes to think through his plays and the numbers he chooses. And he’s now won big multiple times.
Wiley, who is retired, won prizes totaling $150,000 in the Oct. 6 evening Pick 4 drawing. He claimed half that total on Oct. 7. He said he originally planned to wait until 2022 to claim the rest, but changed his mind and instead claimed the winnings this month.
Wiley bought multiple plays of different amounts with differing types of bets for the Pick 4 drawing where he won big. He matched all four numbers in the exact order drawn: 7-3-2-5. He said he chose his own numbers representing the employee I.D. number from his job before he retired. He plans to put his winnings into savings.
Wiley is no stranger to big wins in Pick 4. Back in 2014, he won 42 Pick 4 prizes totaling $200,000, all in one drawing. He said his latest win was just as sweet. He recalled looking at his ticket and just thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
If you aren’t familiar with Pick 4, it’s a numbers game with a long history along the East Coast. But it’s also offered by lotteries across the country, including the Iowa Lottery. Pick 4 players choose combinations of four numbers from 0000 to 9999. The prize that a player could win depends on the type of bet they make.
Players can choose the option of winning a prize only when their numbers match the winning numbers in the exact order selected in the drawing. That’s called a straight play. Or, players can choose the option of winning a prize if their numbers match the winning numbers in any order. That’s called a box play.
It’s statistically harder to match the numbers in the exact order drawn, so the odds of winning on a straight play are higher and the prizes that players can win with that option are larger.
Pick 4 players tend to be loyal to a particular set of numbers and sometimes play them multiple times in a particular drawing, just as Wiley did.
Congratulations, Wiley! Thank you for giving us a feel-good story this Thanksgiving week!
There’s never a bad time to win a lottery prize. So here's a reminder from us that more than a dozen large lottery prizes are currently unclaimed in Iowa — so please double-check your tickets!
On our Unclaimed Prizes list on the Iowa Lottery website, you can see all the prizes of $600 or more in Iowa that are still unclaimed in lotto and InstaPlay games. You can sort the list in several different ways — by game, place of purchase, prize amount, date of win and date of expiration — to key in on the details that matter most to you.
As of today, there are a whopping 19 prizes of $10,000 or more that are waiting to be claimed. At the top of the list is a Lucky for Life prize of $25,000 a year for life (or a $390,000 lump-sum option) that was won with a ticket purchased at Casey’s, 641 Edgewood Road NW in Cedar Rapids.
As for prizes on that list that will expire the soonest, you’ll note that there are numerous prizes expiring on Jan. 3, 2022. That includes a $12,000 Pick 4 prize that was won in the Oct. 3 evening drawing on a ticket purchased at Price Chopper, 4343 Merle Hay Road in Des Moines.
All prizes on the list must be claimed at a lottery office or by mail. The Lucky for Life prize must be claimed at lottery headquarters in Clive. If you have any questions about claiming a prize, give us a call at 515-725-7900 or email us at wmaster@ialottery.com.
A player who reached out to us about our InstaPlay games had a question you may have wondered about as well: What determines when the next winner will hit in one of the games?
InstaPlay games in many ways are scratch games left in electronic form. Rather than printing hard-copy tickets in advance, lottery terminals around the state instead print out the next available play when someone purchases a ticket in that particular InstaPlay game.
You as the InstaPlay player are getting the next available play in the game, and winning tickets are randomly distributed throughout the supply of tickets in an InstaPlay game just like they are in a scratch game.
So, we never know when or where the next big winner will hit – it’s all random. It may be in a small town, or it may be right where you are.
The Iowa Lottery is ending sales in one of its holiday scratch games after a review showed that some tickets in the game appear to have been misprinted.
The lottery takes seriously its responsibility to provide its players with accurate information and quality products. And while we have received only one report of difficulties with a ticket in the “Reindeer Games” scratch game with more than 122,000 tickets in it already distributed, we’re removing the game from sale in an abundance of caution.
A player contacted the lottery yesterday, asking about the results of a Reindeer Games ticket. The lottery’s review found that some of the numbers in the play area on the ticket appeared to have shifted to the side as the ticket was being printed. As a result, a portion of the numbers in the play area were obscured.
After receiving the player inquiry, the Iowa Lottery immediately worked with its vendor that printed the game on a larger review. The lottery chose today to remove Reindeer Games from sale because the game does not meet our expectations. The lottery has notified its retail locations that tickets in the game should be removed from sale.
Any players who have questions about the results of a Reindeer Games ticket should contact Iowa Lottery Security at 515-725-7900 or wmaster@ialottery.com. Although Reindeer Games tickets are being removed from sale, players can continue to claim prizes in the game as normal.
As part of the lottery’s standard verification procedures before a game begins sales, a sampling of the tickets ordered in Reindeer Games were reviewed and tested by lottery staffers. However, any of our scratch games involve hundreds of thousands if not millions of tickets, and with any printed product, there can occasionally be a misprint.
The Reindeer Games scratch game debuted on Sept. 27. It is a $20 game with a holiday theme and multiple play areas on the ticket. Players try to match numbers, letters and symbols in the game to win a prize. Prizes in Reindeer Games range from $20 up to $25,000.
(As background, the lottery ordered more than 377,000 Reindeer Games tickets, and more than 122,000 of those have been distributed as of today. The lottery asked its retail locations today to immediately remove Reindeer Games tickets from sale, and lottery sales representatives will pick up any tickets in the game from retailers in the coming week.)
As the lottery’s vice president of external relations, I’m a member of the senior management team at the Iowa Lottery, where I’ve worked since 1999. I’ve spent my years at the lottery learning as much as I can about all the ins and outs of the lottery industry. I’ll put that knowledge to work here so I can share the behind-the-scenes details with you!