Player Comment: No One From Here Ever Wins …

A player’s recent comment on social media about lottery winners in Iowa started a bit of a debate with other folks, and I’ll share the same background with you here that we provided to them that day.

The initial comment was from a woman who said that winners in our state are only in the Des Moines area or from the north, south or east of Des Moines. Another woman commented back that it’s rare to see a winner from central Iowa, or any of Iowa’s bigger cities for that matter. Other players then commented that they rarely see winners in their areas of the state. It became a bit of a round robin about who had fewer winners in their vicinity.

In reality, there are lottery winners every day in Iowa, all across the state. But the myth that “no one from here ever wins” remains, and seems to be based upon the area a person is from, no matter where that is.

Here's an example: When talking one day with the folks from the D.C. Lottery in Washington, we told them about the statement we hear that "no one from here ever wins." They started laughing and said they hear that "it's always those people from Iowa who win the jackpot." We think the root of the situation is that people will never be truly satisfied until they’re the ones who win a big prize.

The outcome of lottery tickets and drawings is based on random chance. The results of a particular ticket have no impact on an upcoming play. And no one – not even those of us who work at the lottery or the retailers who sell our tickets – can predict when or where the next big winner will hit. There's only one "formula" that works when it comes to playing the lottery: You have to buy a ticket to have a chance to win.

Everyone has the same chance of winning. But there will be more winners in places where more tickets are sold. That doesn’t mean those areas are luckier: It simply means that with a bigger volume of tickets being purchased there, you’ll see more winners in that spot as well. Another way of putting it is that if 5 percent of lottery tickets are sold in a particular area, you expect to find about 5 percent of overall winners there, and that's been the case with the Iowa Lottery.

In our most recent financial year (fiscal year 2020, which ended June 30), $236.3 million in lottery prizes were awarded in Iowa. That’s an average of $647,444 in lottery winnings per day. And so far in fiscal year 2021, Iowa Lottery winnings are running ahead of the previous year. Through November, the most recent month for which we have complete figures, $106.5 million in lottery prizes were awarded in Iowa. That’s an average of $696,374 in winnings per day!  

Comments

[Mary Neubauer]

Hi, Karla. You are correct: The winners in our promotional drawings are determined from among all the entries made. Sometimes there are individual categories within our drawings, and in those instances, the winners are selected from all the entries in that category. We'll often have more than a million entries into a particular drawing, so that is part of the fun, too. It's a second chance at winnings!

[karla wahner]

How are the winner's decided from play it again games,are all the ticket numbers entered in to a computerized drawing? Just wondering, would be nice to win in the play it again game but like they say luck of the draw a person never knows,it could be there day to be the lucky winner.

[john CLEO paltz]

for Christmas i got 45 dollars worth of scratch tickets 3 ten dollars n 3 five dollars , i won 5 dollars out of the bunch ,same price of the ticket , i will be telling my family not to buy theses anymore . Merry Christmas !!

[john CLEO paltz]

maybe you should have less numbers rather than adding more ? the bigger the amount the more you keep , i get it ,but the people are sick of it ,and to top it off you have scratch tickets you call a winner when its the same amount the ticket cost and there are far more of the these than winners

[Sheldon Priest]

My house