A man on Facebook sent us a question today that ties into the procedures we follow when the last top prize has been claimed in one of our scratch games.
That process is currently underway in the “Joker’s Wild” game, since the last top prize in that game was just claimed this week. (Franklin Eddleman of Fairfield claimed that $100,000 prize yesterday at our Cedar Rapids office, as you can see here!) When that occurs, we discontinue sales in the particular scratch game involved. We don’t want a game on the market if you don’t still have the chance to win its top prize!
But the question posed to us on Facebook is: What happens to the rest of the tickets in that game?
The short answer is that they are removed from sale and destroyed.
When the last top prize is claimed in one of our scratch games, it triggers an automatic message that goes out to all of our lottery terminals in the state. The message lets retailers know that the final top prize has been claimed in the game and asks them to remove that particular game from sale. Our district sales representatives who call on our retail locations then pick up the remaining tickets in that game during their next visit to the store and return them to our warehouse.
From there, the tickets are transported to a facility that handles the destruction of secure documents.
We set deadlines by which prizes in our games must be claimed, and in the case of our scratch games, those generally come several months after sales in a particular game have ended. We provide notice and reminders about the upcoming deadlines to give people plenty of time to claim any prizes they’ve won.
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