UPDATE on Jan. 1, 2022: The $1 million winner was the finalist from Pennsylvania. Brian Mineweaser of Honey Brook, Pa., was selected in the drawing for the Powerball First Millionaire of the Year®.
Congratulations to Shari Beenken of Titonka and Rob Long of Waterloo, two of the five nationwide finalists for the $1 million prize! The winner will be announced live on air during ABC’s broadcast of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” from New York's Time Square. The drawing will be held about 12:15 a.m. EST in the new year.
Here’s a timely question we just got with so many people making travel plans in the next few weeks: Do you have to be an Iowa resident or a U.S. resident to win an Iowa Lottery prize?
The answer in almost all cases is that anyone from anywhere can play the lottery and win. There is only one instance where you have to be from Iowa to win the prize involved, and I’ll cover that here.
I think there is definitely home-state pride involved when someone from Iowa wins big and it’s even more fun when someone from your county or your local community wins the lottery. But people from other states and countries can play and win in the Iowa Lottery’s games. The requirements are the same, no matter where the player is from: You have to be at least 21 years old to buy a ticket and a ticket must be legally purchased, legally possessed and legally presented to the Iowa Lottery to claim a prize.
By its very definition, a lottery is a game that can be won by anyone from anywhere, provided that they have a ticket. In any given year, the vast majority of Iowa Lottery prizes are claimed by Iowans. But our winners this year have also included a Minnesota woman who claimed a $300,000 prize, a Florida man who claimed a $50,000 prize and an Illinois man who claimed a $30,000 prize.
If you win an Iowa Lottery prize and you’re not a resident of this country, you may pay a higher amount in withholding than a U.S. citizen would, but it’s perfectly OK for you to play and win! That situation applies in reverse when we as Iowans play the lottery and win prizes as we’re traveling out of state or out of the country. And bottom line, Iowa Lottery sales provide proceeds to help our state, no matter where the person is from who made the purchase.
Folks from outside of Iowa also can enter our Play It Again® promotions and win prizes in them. (As with prizes in our games, the withholding difference may apply to prizes in our promotions if you’re not a U.S. citizen.)
The only time that Iowa residency is required is in our contests that offer actual lottery tickets as prizes. It’s illegal for us to mail or ship lottery tickets across state lines, so in those instances, you do have to be from Iowa to win.
Here’s a scheduling reminder if you’ve got a prize to claim at an Iowa Lottery office in the next couple weeks: Our offices will be closed on Thursday, Dec. 23, and Friday, Dec. 24, for the Christmas weekend and on Friday, Dec. 31, for the New Year’s holiday.
And as you’re buying tickets this holiday season, please consider our gentle reminder that lottery tickets as gifts should be reserved for the grown-ups on your list. Thank you for playing!
We switched things up a bit in our holiday promotion this year, and the change means you’ve got 2½ more weeks to enter for your shot at the grand prize of $100,000!
A lot of times in our promotions, entries for the grand prize drawing end at the same time as those in the last of the initial drawings. But that’s not the case with the Warehouse Dash® promotion.
The winners have been selected for the Warehouse Dash trips and the $5,000 prizes up for grabs in the promotion’s initial drawings, but the entry period for the $100,000 grand prize lasts until the morning of Jan. 4. You have until 9:59 a.m. that day to enter eligible tickets from our holiday scratch games for a chance to win that prize.
And, if you already entered tickets earlier in the drawing and those entries weren’t selected in one of the initial drawings, they also remain eligible for the grand-prize drawing for $100,000. We’ll hold that drawing on Jan. 6.
So, congratulations to the 20 winners of $5,000 cash in the Warehouse Dash’s first four drawings and the four Warehouse Dash shopping spree winners:
• Mike Thompson of Storm Lake • Shelby Nyweide of Tipton • Angela McClelland of Des Moines • Fawn Berstler of Marengo
We’re excited to see who will be selected as the $100,000 winner next month!
(We’ve heard from folks asking what it’s like to get to do the Warehouse Dash because they’ve had so much fun thinking about it. If you haven’t seen the videos of our 2012 winners, you can check them out here and here. As one of the winners says, there’s a whole lot of strategy and planning, but it all kind of goes out the window once the contestants start running!)
Warehouse Dash is a registered trademark of Hinda, Inc. Please note that sales in the "Reindeer Games" holiday scratch game ended Nov. 6, but any eligible tickets purchased in it can still be entered into the Warehouse Dash promotion.
We’ve add a new way for you to watch Powerball® drawings on the Iowa Lottery’s website.
Video of the Powerball drawings is now available on the Powerball page of our site. You can see the video boxes along the right side of the page. The top box, which has a blue background, shows a U.S. map with the areas highlighted where Powerball is played. The bottom box contains the actual footage of the latest Powerball drawing.
The drawings will stream live on our site as they occur at 9:59 p.m. Central time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Then once the livestream is completed, footage of the latest drawing will remain available on our site until the next Powerball drawing occurs. Once the footage of the new drawing is available, it will replace the previous version so that video of the most recent drawing is always available on our site.
The Powerball drawings are still televised in many areas, but with life feeling busier than ever these days, this new option gives you a place where you can always catch the latest drawing, live or on demand.
Here are the details we shared with a player who wondered if something unusual had happened with the prizes available in one of our scratch games. The game involved has been really popular – and the Iowa Lottery had to take some additional steps to ensure it could stay on the market a little longer.
The player noticed that the overall number of prizes available in the “Colossal Crossword” game had increased, which also changed the number of claimed and unclaimed prizes in that game. The changes occurred because the Iowa Lottery ordered more tickets in the game, and that in turn increased the number of prizes available in it.
When we plan out the schedules for our games and order the tickets we’ll have on the market, we do our best to estimate the supply needed for a game to be offered for an anticipated period of time. But sometimes, sales in a particular game are stronger than we expected, which ultimately is a positive because it means players really like the game!
But that also creates the reality that the game won’t last for as long as we planned. One solution could be for the lottery to move up the release date for another game to fill the spot. But knowing that customers really like the existing game, we also can order more tickets in it. That’s what the Iowa Lottery did with Colossal Crossword. The additional supply of tickets in that game went live in late November.
We also released more tickets in the “Win Big” game earlier that month and in a few other scratch games this year, including “Super 20s” and “Wild Bingo.”
The same situation also can apply in our InstaPlay games. Back in March, the Iowa Lottery ordered more tickets in the “Cherry Twist Progressive” InstaPlay game to ensure an ongoing supply of tickets in it.
Another way to think of it is like the bulk order that a restaurant owner places for the meals they plan to serve. They estimate the number of, say, salmon dinners they anticipate customers will order, but on a particular night, the salmon may be really popular and sell out. Reality in the marketplace does not always match up with estimates in advance!
When we order additional tickets in one of our games, we always update the prizes available in it so you’ll have the latest details.
Here’s a thought we hope you’ll keep with you as you’re shopping for gifts in the next few weeks.
Lottery tickets are popular as presents and stocking stuffers, and here at the Iowa Lottery, we want you to have fun while you're playing. But we also recognize that our tickets may not be something you want to give to those underage.
The same concept applies to other products as well. Some video games and movies aren’t appropriate for all ages due to their content. Alcohol and tobacco-related products have their own age restrictions. Even toys come with age-recommendation guidelines.
In Iowa, you have to be at least 21 years old to buy lottery tickets, and we’ve always identified our products as something for adults. Remember, you are gambling when you play the lottery.
The Iowa Lottery offers these reminders to minimize the risks associated with youth gambling: • Be sure to give youngsters age-appropriate gifts. • When you give lottery tickets as presents, please keep the person's age in mind.
Here’s an interesting winner story from this week: An eastern Iowa man won two prizes of $10,000 in the same Mega Millions® drawing with tickets from different stores.
Larry Witmer of Solon bought his easy-pick tickets a few hours apart on Tuesday for that night’s Mega Millions drawing. Five of the numbers on his plays were identical, and that’s how he ended up hitting big -- twice.
Each of Larry’s tickets matched four of the white balls and the Mega Ball® to win a $10,000 prize.
Games like Powerball® and Mega Millions are purposefully designed to allow repeat plays of the same numbers. That’s how jackpots can end up being split by multiple tickets across the country. It’s a security feature of the games and that demonstrates random selection.
In Larry’s case, his plays weren’t entirely identical, but they came close. And that random outcome had a VERY positive impact.
Here’s some exciting and unexpected news: Iowa has two of the five nationwide finalists for a $1 million prize that will be awarded in a special Powerball® drawing just after midnight in the New Year.
Iowa’s finalists have two very different stories. Shari Beenken of Titonka, a Kossuth County community of about 500, entered Powerball tickets in the promotion she purchased on her own, while Rob Long of Waterloo entered tickets he bought on behalf of a group of his co-workers, friends and family who pool their money to buy tickets. He calls the group Lotto 22.
With two players in the running, Iowa has a 40 percent chance of having the $1 million winner. The other finalists for the prize are from Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania.
Shari, 57, is an office administrator at an Algona business. She said her heart was pounding, she had tears in her eyes and she was a bit in shock when she learned she was one of the finalists.
Rob, 50, is a warehouse associate in Waterloo, He said he also was shocked by the news, but then had fun sharing the details with his group. A lot of them didn’t know he’d entered their tickets in the promotion, and he said he loved seeing the surprise on people’s faces.
Iowa and 28 other lotteries in the Powerball game participated in this year’s edition of the First Millionaire of the Year promotion, which gave players the chance to enter their Powerball tickets for a shot at more winnings. Iowa Lottery players could enter tickets into the promotion back in September, and on Sept. 30, the Iowa Lottery selected 20 of them (including Beenken and Long) as semi-finalist winners of $2,500 each.
Those 20 Iowa winners along with the semi-finalists from the other states in the promotion were all then entered into a random drawing to determine the five finalists for the $1 million prize. And Iowa ended up with two of the five!
For being selected as a finalist, Shari and Rob each will receive a $10,000 cash prize and a home party package also valued at $10,000, including a 70-inch LED TV, karaoke system, premium laptop computer, and deluxe dinner for eight.
Rob held a drawing with the help of a member of his group and his wife to determine how the Lotto 22 would split up the home entertainment package. They put all the group members’ names in a bowl and selected winners of the merchandise prizes. The group is evenly splitting the $10,000 cash prize.
Shari said that if she’s the $1 million winner, she and her husband, Rod, plan to invest a majority of the winnings. But she said she’d spend a little of the money as well. She said she’s not extravagant, but she needs a new dishwasher.
If Rob is the $1 million winner, the prize will be split amongst his group, with each member receiving about $45,500 before taxes. Rob said that his wife, Heather, would like a newer vehicle, so his share of the winnings will likely go towards that. But he also has a purchase of his own in mind.
Rob said he’s an ‘80s guy who has always loved arcade games, and he wants his own Donkey Kong machine.
Shari, Rob and the other three finalists for the $1 million prize will be in their hometowns on New Year’s Eve. The national television broadcast will check in with them throughout the night. Then just after midnight EST, the $1 million winner will be announced!
For those wondering, here are the members of the Lotto 22:
From Clarksville: Scott Herrmann and Victor Herrmann From Denver: Bruce Gonnerman From Dunkerton: Michael Nicolaus and Nancy Smock From Independence: Bryan Cain and Kristen Kayser From Jesup: Ronald Kester From La Porte City: Bruce Long From Oelwein: Ellyn Perkins From Plainfield: Valeria Marks From Raymond: Randy Ruehs From Shell Rock: Grant Clark From Waterloo: Trish Bandfield, Mark Burke, Steven Foster, Kelvin Holmes, Rob Long, Nesffy Molina, Mike O’Connor, Martin Van Horn, Eric Woodward.
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As the lottery’s vice president of external relations, I’m a member of the senior management team at the Iowa Lottery, where I’ve worked since 1999. I’ve spent my years at the lottery learning as much as I can about all the ins and outs of the lottery industry. I’ll put that knowledge to work here so I can share the behind-the-scenes details with you!