He Didn't Forecast This: Meteorologist Wins Big Prize

His job is to make accurate forecasts, but something happened today that a television meteorologist did not have on his radar: He claimed a big lottery prize.

Jason Sydejko, a meteorologist in Des Moines at KCCI-TV, won a progressive jackpot of nearly $17,000 in one of the Iowa Lottery’s InstaPlay games. His exact prize was $16,807.70 in the Cherry Twist Progressive game.

Jason claimed his prize this afternoon at lottery headquarters in Clive and admitted he was a little nervous about the reaction that the news staff at his station would have because he worked all weekend and managed not to tell anyone there. He said he kept the winning ticket in his wallet all weekend and was really feeling the strain of not telling his co-workers by Sunday night. He said that in some ways, he was almost just seeing if he could do it.

Jason, 38, said he’s a stats and numbers guy, and that’s why he started playing progressive InstaPlay games, which have jackpots that grow with each ticket sold statewide until someone wins it.

He said that on Friday, he stopped at the Kum & Go convenience store at 1300 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines near the KCCI station, and bought five tickets in the Cherry Twist Progressive game.

He said he went back out to his car and started to drive away, but at the last minute, decided to check the tickets while he was still at the store to see if he had won anything. He looked over his tickets and got a shock.  

He said he saw the words “progressive jackpot winner” on one of his tickets, so he ran back into the store and had them check the results. He admittedly started yelling that he had won.

Jason said he plans to use his winnings to pay off his car and then likely buy a house. A bike-training machine may be in his future. He also said he plans to keep buying the tickets for the Powerball® pool at work – assuming that his co-workers aren’t too mad at him for not sharing his news sooner!

Congratulations, Jason, and thank you for sharing some laughter and cheer with us today. It seems like we all need that these days!