ialottery blog

Many More Prizes Still to Award

We are officially halfway through our “12 Weeks of WinnerTime” promotion, which means 21 players so far have won prizes, and there are 57 more prizes to award before the end of the holiday season.

Players from across the state have been claiming $1,000 cash prizes in this promotion and we’ve been sharing some of their photos on our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages. You can check out the complete list of winners so far on our website.

Duane Gettler of Adair, Susan Grotegut of Waukon, Tim Heine of Parkersburg, Ellen Jensen of Madrid, Gary Murray of Ankeny and Melody Young of Webster City each won $1,000 prizes in this week’s drawings and there will be many more in the last six weeks of this holiday promotion.

Remember, each week during the promotion we increase the number of $1,000 prizes drawn, so next week we will draw for seven winners; eight winners will be drawn the following week, and so on until the very last drawing of this promotion on Dec. 31, when 12 winners will be drawn.

10 Down, (Only) 68 More To Go!

We just completed the fourth weekly drawing in our “12 Weeks of WinnerTime” promotion, which means 10 players so far have won $1,000 prizes! And we’ve got 68 more to go before this holiday season is done!

Four players each won $1,000 prizes in this week’s drawing, so here’s a BIG congratulations to: Mark Fritze of Council Bluffs; Barb Diercks of Sabula; Gary Johnson of Peosta and Patricia Lieb of Pocahontas.   

And as you know, there will be five prizes on the line next week, six prizes on the line the week after that, and on and on until we hit 12 winners of $1,000 each in the drawing on Dec. 31.

For a complete list of the winners so far and the details about how you can enter the promotion, click here.

I’ve Never Played Before. How Do I Do This?

Last week, I had the chance to talk with a woman who’d won some free scratch tickets from the lottery and was having fun trying them out. But she came up to me later and admitted she’d never played a lottery ticket before, and she didn’t know how to tell if she’d won. It was a great reminder for me as someone who works at the lottery that the basics are ALWAYS important!

In this particular case, the woman was playing tickets in our “Make Me Witch” Halloween-themed game. I showed her the play instructions on the front of each ticket, and after reading them, she realized she hadn’t scratched off all the latex in the playing area on her tickets. Once she did that, she was able to see if she’d won a prize. I also explained to her that she can always check her tickets at a lottery retailer just to double-check her work.

If you play lottery tickets regularly, you’re already familiar with the play instructions we print on all our tickets. We also we keep that information and many more details about our games on our website, grouped together by the type of ticket involved: scratch games, lotto games and pull-tab games.

We also have how-to-play videos available for nearly all of our lotto games – look for the newest video in that series on Sunday when sales begin in our new MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB lottery game!

If you ever have questions when you’re playing one of our games, we’re always glad to help. You can reach us here on the blog and our other social media platforms, and our main email address is [email protected].

2014 Holiday Promo: It’s All Cash This Time!

We’ve focused on electronics in our last few holiday promotions, so we’re going old-school this year: All cash, all the time!

We’ll give away 78 prizes of $1,000 in our 2014 holiday promotion, which is aptly named “12 Weeks of WinnerTime”! There will be one drawing each week, and the number of prizes up for grabs will increase with each drawing. Entries are good only for the drawing in which they are entered, and then the process will start over each week.

It’s all kicking off today, with the release of our first eight holiday-themed scratch games for 2014. Two more holiday scratch games will be added to the mix on Nov. 3.

You can enter the promotion using nonwinning tickets from those 10 games. You’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club.

Entries can begin at noon Monday. Each weekly entry time period begins at noon on Monday and ends at 11:59 a.m. the following Monday, and a new drawing will be held each week. The final 12 Weeks of WinnerTime drawing will be Dec. 30. Each nonwinning holiday scratch ticket that you enter will count as one entry into the next weekly drawing, regardless of the price of the ticket.

Here are the tickets you can enter:

$1 Did I Peng-Win?
$1 Tis the Season (begins Nov. 3)
$2 Cash Flurries
$2 Oh Deer Bingo
$2 Merry Bucks (begins Nov. 3)
$3 Holiday Word Bank
$3 Shiny Bright Crossword
$5 Starry Night
$5 Winter Wishes Super Crossword
$10 Holiday Cash.  

And here’s the drawing schedule for the promotion along with the number of prizes that will be on the line each week:

Entry Period                                    Number of $1,000 Prizes      Drawing Date
Noon Oct. 6-11:59 a.m. Oct. 13                1                                    Oct. 14
Noon Oct. 13-11:59 a.m. Oct. 20              2                                    Oct. 21
Noon Oct. 20-11:59 a.m. Oct. 27              3                                    Oct. 28
Noon Oct. 27-11:59 a.m. Nov. 3               4                                    Nov. 4
Noon Nov. 3-11:59 a.m. Nov. 10              5                                    Nov. 12
Noon Nov. 10-11:59 a.m. Nov. 17            6                                    Nov. 18
Noon Nov. 17-11:59 a.m. Nov. 24            7                                    Nov. 25
Noon Nov. 24-11:59 a.m. Dec. 1              8                                    Dec. 2
Noon Dec. 1-11:59 a.m. Dec. 8                9                                    Dec. 9