Two Prizes of $30,000 Won In Iowa City Nearing Expiration

Last week, we told you about the $1 million Powerball prize that’s still unclaimed in central Iowa, and today, we’re highlighting two sizeable prizes nearing their expiration dates in eastern Iowa.

Both of those prizes are for $30,000 and were won in Iowa’s Pick 4 game. They’ll expire later this month if they aren’t claimed in time.

The prizes were won in the evening Pick 4 drawing on Feb. 28. The winning tickets were both purchased at Fareway, 2530 Westwinds Drive in Iowa City. The prizes will expire at the close of business (4 p.m.) on May 29 if they’re not claimed at a lottery office before then.

If you’re not familiar with Pick 4, it’s a numbers game with a long history along the East Coast. But it also is 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 players can win depends on the type of bet they make.

For example, players can choose the option of winning a prize only when the numbers they’ve played 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.

The prizes nearing expiration in Iowa City each came from a $5 straight bet with the numbers 2-6-4-9. Those numbers were drawn in that exact order in the evening Pick 4 drawing on Feb. 28, resulting in a $30,000 prize from each play.

We keep a list of all the unclaimed prizes in our lotto games on the lottery website so double-check your tickets!

Comments

[Bryan Smith]

Clayburn Cox, you can watch the how these winning numbers were drawn on thehoosierlottery You Tube page.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NOS3RlB_Xlk&index=145&list=PLGhZfvH_xu5QxMjOfbybytfYAKmoXIJ04

[Mary Neubauer]

Hi, Clayburn. That's not how odds work in a game like Pick 4. They're different from other lotto games. That's because the drawings in Pick 4 aren't for a set of four numbers. There are four separate ball-drawing machines in a Pick 4 drawing, and each machine selects just one number. So, for example, if the number "1" is selected by the first machine, it can also be selected by the second machine, and the third and the fourth. That's how it's possible that 1-1-1-1 can be a winning combination in Pick 4. That's also why the odds of winning the game's top prize of $30,000 are just 1 in 10,000. Those were the odds of winning each of the $30,000 prizes involved. That's part of what makes a game like Pick 4 a little different.

[Clayburn Cox]

Looks like you still have a problem with someone knowing the "winning" numbers before they are even drawn. Two five dollar bets on the same 4 numbers on the same day at the same place? and a |straight| bet to boot. The odds of that occurring in this universe are very, very close to "nil". People will get wise one of these days that your games are all rigged and you will have a pretty price to pay.