A $50,000 Powerball® prize won in Des Moines will expire in a month if it isn’t claimed in time, and at the Iowa Lottery, we’re reminding players to double-check their tickets!
The Des Moines prize is among five lottery prizes of at least $20,000 that are currently unclaimed in Iowa. They’ll all expire by early October if they aren’t claimed in time.
The $50,000 Powerball prize has the earliest expiration date on that list. It was won in the Powerball drawing on Dec. 16 and is set to expire on June 13. The winning ticket was purchased at Casey’s, 3725 Beaver Ave. in Des Moines, for the Powerball drawing on Dec. 16. It matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball to win a $50,000 prize.
The winning Powerball numbers in that night’s drawing were 3-9-10-20-62 and Powerball 25. The Power Play® number was 3.
What’s the largest current unclaimed prize in Iowa?
The largest prize currently unclaimed in Iowa is a $500,000 Powerball Double Play® prize won in March in Mason City. That particular prize is a little more unusual because Double Play is a new option in the Powerball game.
The Powerball Double Play option made its Iowa debut in November. For an extra $1 per play, players can add the Double Play option to their Powerball tickets. (A Powerball play costs $2, and with Double Play added, a ticket costs $3.) The numbers on that ticket are then eligible to win twice – once in the regular Powerball drawing, and once in a separate Double Play drawing that same night.
It’s possible for a player to win a prize in the regular Powerball drawing and the Double Play drawing on the same night.
In the case of the Mason City ticket, it matched the first five numbers but missed the Double Play Powerball in the Double Play drawing on March 16 to win a $500,000 prize. It was the only ticket in the country to win a $500,000 prize that night.
The lucky ticket was purchased at Kwik Star, 1502 Federal Ave. in Mason City. It will expire on Sept. 12 if the prize is not claimed in time.
Here are details about the other two sizeable lottery prizes in Iowa that remain unclaimed (listed by prize amount):
| Game | Drawing Date | Amount Won | Retailer | Expiration |
| Powerball | April 10, 2024 | $50,000 | Hy-Vee, Des Moines | Oct. 7, 2024 |
| InstaPlay | May 10, 2024 | $38,851.35 | Kwik Star, Davenport | Aug. 8, 2024 |
| Mega Millions | March 26, 2024 | $20,000 | Kum & Go, Ankeny | Sept. 23, 2024 |
While all of the prizes need to be claimed at an Iowa Lottery office, the $500,000 prize in particular has to be claimed at lottery headquarters in Clive. Prize-claim hours at lottery offices are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, with offices closed on state holidays.
What happens to unclaimed prize money in Iowa?
In the last fiscal year (FY 2023), more than $1.7 million in lotto and InstaPlay prizes expired in Iowa without being claimed.
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.
Love iowa lottery
Posted by: Faith budd | June 04, 2024 at 06:46 AM