A player from northeast Iowa emailed us with a question that made us so sad about the lottery ticket she’d bought, because there was no way for us to help her. The same thing could happen to you, so please learn from her situation.
The woman said she bought a scratch ticket at a convenience store in Waterloo on her way to work. She didn’t play it right away, and continued on her way. When she arrived at work, she noticed that her purse must have fallen open at some point, and her ticket was gone.
The woman said she went back to look for the ticket, but she never found it. Because she didn’t know whether it had won a prize, she wondered if by letting us know that she had lost it, she could somehow have a claim to any prize if someone else later claimed it.
The woman said she hadn’t signed her ticket when she bought it, and that’s a key point. A lottery ticket without a signature on it is like a blank check. In legal terms, it’s what is known as a bearer instrument, meaning that the person bearing it is considered the owner.
That is why we urge our players to sign the back of their tickets as soon as they buy them. When you sign your ticket, you identify it – and any prize you may win – as belonging to you. It may seem like something that doesn’t matter, but this woman’s story unfortunately illustrates why it’s so important.
Hi, Jose. The public disclosure requirement here in Iowa has been in place since the Iowa Lottery started back in 1985. It was a key part of the long-running lottery jackpot investigation that ultimately resulted in confessions last year from three men who admitted to committing lottery fraud. Some people will unfortunately try to do a lot of things when money is involved, and there need to be safeguards and disclosure requirements in place to help catch them when they do. I recognize your right to your own opinion on this matter, but I respectfully disagree.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | October 11, 2018 at 12:08 PM
Hi, John. During the holiday season each year, we release the holiday-themed games that you now see available for sale in stores. There is only so much room in our dispensers and vending machines, so "regular" games are generally replaced with holiday-themed games just for the next few months. Our regular games will return to shelves in January, after the holidays. We do our best to keep the odds nearly the same in our holiday-themed games as opposed to our regular games. The holiday games have fewer overall prizes available simply because they're only going to be in the market for a few months. Our regular games are often designed to last for several months or a few years at a time, so more tickets and more prizes are involved in them. The odds of winning are nearly the same, it's simply the overall size of the game that is different.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | October 11, 2018 at 12:04 PM
It's absolute horse manure that state law requires winners to be public. It servers ZERO purpose other than to further the ads of the Iowa lottery. It should be changed to allow a person to remain out of the public view.
Posted by: jose | October 11, 2018 at 09:11 AM
Why did you replace the 3-5and 10 dollar crossword puzzles with holiday versions that have fewer available prizes and somewhat worse odds??
Posted by: John Webber | October 11, 2018 at 12:51 AM
That's exactly right, Kevin!
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | October 02, 2018 at 09:08 AM