ialottery blog

Out-of-State Winner Alert! NW Iowa Woman Wins New Truck In Nebraska Lottery Scratch Game

We often get questions about whether it’s OK for people from other states or countries to win Iowa Lottery prizes, but here’s a situation about the opposite happening. 

A northwest Iowa woman just won a new truck as one of the top prizes in the Nebraska Lottery’s “Truck$ & Buck$^®” scratch game.

Jamie Ferguson of Pocahontas claimed her 2023 Ford F-150 SuperCrew Flex Fuel truck yesterday in Lincoln, Neb. So, congratulations, Jamie! We love the Iowa angle of your win!

In almost all cases, anyone from anywhere can play the lottery and win. There’s only one instance here in Iowa where you have to be a resident of our state to win an Iowa Lottery prize, and I’ll cover that here. 

People from other states and countries can play – and win – in the Iowa Lottery’s games. The requirements for them are the same as those for everybody else: They have to be at least 21 years old to buy a ticket and the ticket must be legally purchased, legally possessed and legally presented to the Iowa Lottery to claim the prize.

By its very definition, a lottery is a game that can be won by anyone from anywhere, provided that they have a ticket.

Within the past year, the vast majority of Iowa Lottery prizes were claimed by folks from right here in Iowa. But our winners in the past month also have also included a Nebraska woman and Illinois man who each won a $10,000 scratch-game prize; and an Arkansas man who won a $25,000 InstaPlay prize.           

If you win an Iowa Lottery prize and you’re not a resident of the United States, 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!

We’re pretty sure that our out-of-state winners are glad that they can buy tickets and win prizes here! Bottom line, Iowa Lottery sales provide proceeds to help our state, no matter where the person is from who made the purchase.

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.

TRUCKS & BUCKS® & © 2023 Scientific Games, LLC.

All Rights Reserved.

Closing In On The 1-Month Mark For 2 Powerball Prizes of $150K

So much focus was on the $1 million prize that expired earlier this month in Ames that two other sizeable unclaimed prizes in Iowa haven’t gotten as much attention. It’s time to change that!

The one-month mark is approaching for two Powerball® prizes of $150,000. They both were won at locations in northwest Iowa, and we hope that we can jog someone’s memory in time for the winnings to be claimed! Maybe a player will discover a ticket they initially set aside and end up with an unexpected windfall!

The first of the unclaimed $150,000 prizes was won in the Powerball drawing on Oct. 29, 2022. It was purchased at Floyd Food & Fuel, 3241 Floyd Blvd. in Sioux City. That prize will expire at the close of business on Oct. 30 of this year if it isn’t claimed in time.

The other unclaimed prize of $150,000 was won in the Powerball drawing on Nov. 5, 2022. It was purchased at the Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh at 1999 Park St. in Sheldon. That prize will expire at the close of business on Nov. 6 of this year if it isn’t claimed in time.

In both instances, the ticket involved initially matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball to win a $50,000 prize. But whoever bought the ticket added the Power Play® option to their ticket, which multiplied their winnings to $150,000.

Either prize can be claimed at any Iowa Lottery office. If you think you might be the winner and have questions about the prize-claim process, we’re happy to help. Please feel free to reach us by email at [email protected] or give us a shout at 515-725-7900.

The prizes both were won in the lead-up to the world-record Powerball jackpot of $2.04 billion won in the game’s drawing on Nov. 7, 2022. When the jackpot climbs into the stratosphere like that, the player base in the game expands, with more first-time and occasional players jumping in to buy tickets.

These unclaimed prizes are a real-world reminder of the message we stress to check your ticket for any prize you may have won, not just the jackpot.

In the last fiscal year, more than $1.7 million in lotto and InstaPlay prizes expired in Iowa without being claimed.

Time appears to be a factor. The Iowa Lottery reviewed plays from a sampling of recent lotto drawings and found that the vast majority of prize claims occurred within six months of the drawing date. Less than 3 percent of prizes from those drawings were claimed after that point.

The money from lottery prizes that expire in Iowa without being claimed goes into the lottery's prize pools for future games and promotions, so it will be used to pay prizes, just not those prizes that have expired.

I’m Clearly Not 21, But They Still Carded Me

Here’s a question that just came our way from a player who wondered why he was carded at a local convenience store as he was buying lottery tickets.

The man said he’s clearly not 21 – in fact, he’s over 50 – and he still had to show his I.D.

There’s a real-world reason behind that workplace policy: Stores ask customers to verify their age before buying certain products as a way to protect their ability to do business.

Lottery tickets are an age-controlled product, meaning that you have to be a certain age before you can purchase them. Here in Iowa, the minimum purchasing age for lottery tickets is 21.

Retail locations receive licenses to sell age-controlled products, and one of the requirements of those licenses is that they enforce the minimum purchasing age. A business license will be suspended or even revoked if they violate its terms, and some stores therefore choose to I.D. everyone, not just those they think may be under 21.

Losing any business license would have a huge financial impact on the location involved, likely limiting for an extended period of time the products it can sell.

We support our retailers’ decisions to take a careful approach!

So if you’re asked for an I.D. when you buy lottery tickets, know that the store is doing the right thing. (And if you think it’s obvious you don’t look 21, maybe just have fun in that moment!)

20 Iowa Players Will Win $2,500 & 1 Could Win a Trip To NYC to Celebrate New Year’s Eve & Have A Shot At $1 Million!

When you buy a Powerball® ticket right now in Iowa, extra chances at winning are on the line, including the possibility of spending New Year’s Eve in NYC to be in the running to become the Powerball First Millionaire of the Year®!

You, of course, have a chance at a Powerball prize when you buy a ticket. And for the next month, you can enter your Powerball tickets in the Powerball First Millionaire of the Year promotion for a chance to win one of 20 Iowa prizes of $2,500 cash plus the possibility of becoming the Powerball First Millionaire of 2024!

The promotion started at 10 a.m. today, and the entry period runs through the morning of Oct. 17. Any Powerball ticket purchased in Iowa on or after Sept. 1 of this year is eligible for entry (winning and nonwinning tickets can both be entered).

Please note this important detail: Simply buying a Powerball ticket during the promotion period is not an automatic entry. You’ll need to buy a Powerball ticket in Iowa and then enter that ticket into the promotion through your VIP Club account. (Click here to join if you’re not already a member.)

You may remember that a woman from tiny Swan, Iowa, had a ball on her trip to New York in last year’s Powerball First Millionaire of the Year promotion.

In the Iowa drawing on Oct. 19, we’ll select our state’s 20 winners of $2,500 prizes. Each of those winners will then be a semifinalist in a drawing from among the 23 states participating in this year’s Powerball First Millionaire of the Year promotion. Five finalists will be selected from all the participating lotteries’ contestants in a drawing on Nov. 8. Only one name per lottery will be eligible as a finalist.

The five finalists will each go to New York to celebrate New Year’s Eve and be in the running for the $1 million prize. The New York trip package is valued at more than $28,000.

Each eligible Powerball ticket entered will count as one entry into the promotion, regardless of the number of plays on it or how many drawings those plays may span.

Just after the ball drops to ring in the New Year, Powerball’s First Millionaire of the Year will be drawn during ABC’s live national broadcast of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.” And yes, it could be you!

© 2023 dick clark productions, llc

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Even and New Year’s Rockin’ Eve are registered trademarks of DCP Rights, LLC. All rights reserved.

Nope, They Don’t Count: Words Within Words, Numbers Within Numbers

Here’s a question we’ve gotten in a couple different ways from players who were hoping for a win. But in neither instance did the ticket involved actually win a prize.

The first question was about one of our “Crossword” scratch games, and whether a word within a word counts toward the total needed on a ticket to win a prize. The short answer is: No.

The image here includes a great example of that. One of the words that you can see on this “$20,000 Crossword” ticket is scapegoat. Following the line of thinking in the question we received, could that word count as two: scapegoat AND goat?

Words within words, meaning partial words, don’t count in a Crossword game. You have to complete the whole word on your ticket. So in this case, you could not count both scapegoat and goat.

Here’s a different twist on that topic, asking about numbers within numbers. If the winning numbers that you need to match on a ticket are 4 and 8 and you have 14 and 18 among your numbers, does that mean you win? In other words, can you win if any of the numbers on your ticket contain a 4 and an 8?

Again, the short answer is no. A number within a number doesn’t count. The number 14 is only that number – it can’t be disassembled to count as a 1, 4, or 14.

No One Claimed The $1 Million Prize, So Now What?

The $1 million Mega Millions® prize won last year in Ames has expired without being claimed, but someone is still going to win that money. 

Click on the video above to learn how the Iowa Lottery will give away the unclaimed prize money in just the next few months!

No, Really: Her Dog Ate Her Lottery Ticket

Here’s an inquiry we’ll classify under ‘believe it or not’ because there’s a perfect name involved.

A woman named Cheryl reached out to us today to share that her dog, Ripley, had ripped up her lottery ticket! She sent us the photo you can see here of the remains of her scratch ticket -- and there are some definite chew marks involved!.

Cheryl said she’d checked her ticket before Ripley got ahold of it, so she knew it had won a prize. She wondered if she could still cash it despite the obvious damage.

In her case, there was enough identifying information on the remaining piece of her “$100,000 Mega Crossword” ticket for her to claim her prize.

There are limits to a situation like that, though!

If your lottery ticket ever ends up getting damaged and you have questions about the prize it may have won, we’ll do our best to help figure it out. Just know that depending on the extent of the damage, it may not be possible to determine the outcome of the ticket.

You’re always welcome to email us at [email protected], contact us on social media, or call us at 515-725-7900 if you have questions about your lottery ticket.

Thank you to Cheryl – and Ripley – for a story that made us laugh today!

Hey, I Just Found This (Really) Old Lottery Ticket …

We got a letter this week that was truly a blast from the past. It came from a Colorado man, who said he’d found a lottery ticket in his mother’s paperwork after her recent passing.

The man had signed the back of it and mailed it to us, which is what you would do if you wanted to have a ticket checked or cashed. But this particular ticket was purchased for a Powerball® drawing nearly 28 years ago.

The ticket must have been kept somewhere out of the light, because it was in great condition. It looked like it had just been printed from the terminal.

I’ve included a photocopy of it here. Back when the ticket was purchased, Powerball had only been around for three years. The game got its start in April 1992. And check out the $5 million jackpot from back then! The definition of a “big jackpot” certainly has changed over time!

Do you notice something missing from the ticket that’s a standard feature on those produced today? There’s no barcode. For that and many other technology-related reasons, today’s lottery equipment can’t read a ticket from years ago. And, any prize this particular ticket might have won would have expired in 1996.

For curiosity’s sake, I was able to look up the winning numbers from the Powerball drawing on Oct. 4, 1995. I circled the numbers on the ticket that matched the winning numbers that night.

As you can see, four separate plays on the ticket each matched one of the white balls in the drawing, which would not have won a prize.

This story does show the importance of checking your tickets, though!

I let the man know we are sorry to learn of his mother’s passing and we wish him well with the many details that follow in that situation. I mailed the original ticket back to him along with a print-out of the winning numbers from the drawing so he can put his mind at ease.

And I thanked him for a look at lottery history!