It’s time for another entry in our Truth vs. Myth series to test your lottery know-how! Here goes: Does the lottery control where winning scratch tickets are sold?
The answer to that is a big ol’ NOPE. That particular belief is definitely a myth. And the mistaken idea unfortunately extends out into other myth-based thoughts like: All the winners are from big cities/small towns/other states/no one from my area ever wins, etc.
The fact is that the odds of winning in lottery games are based solely on random chance.
The outcome of one particular ticket has no impact at all on the outcome of an upcoming ticket. And no one -- not even those of us who work at the lottery or the retailers that sell our tickets -- can predict when or where the next big winner will hit. That’s an important part of our security procedures.
Winning tickets are distributed randomly in our scratch games. Maybe a quick way to visualize that is to think about a deck of shuffled cards. Once the deck has been shuffled, there could be three hearts or clubs in a row and then several cards after that in the other two suits. The order becomes random once the cards are shuffled.
It’s the same thing in our games. There could be three winning tickets in a row, and then several nonwinning tickets in a row after that. Now, the size of a scratch game is much, much bigger than a deck of cards, but the same concept applies. (There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of tickets in a scratch game.)
The bottom line is: People all across Iowa – and all across the country – can and do win lottery prizes every day.
Whether you play the lottery or not, we want everyone to have an accurate understanding of how the lottery works. This Truth or Myth series is part of that effort.
Hi, Mike. In places where there are larger populations, there will be more people playing lottery games, and therefore, more tickets being purchased there. More tickets purchased = more winners occurring in that area, simply based on volume. However, it does NOT MEAN that folks in that area are luckier. There were just more tickets sold in that area, so there were more winners from the higher volume of tickets sold.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | April 14, 2025 at 08:56 AM
Hi, Aaron. Your assertions regarding the design of lottery games and the distribution of tickets in them are simply incorrect, so we will have to agree to disagree. Years ago, that woman did win prizes in a game for which she designed the artwork featured on the tickets. However, she had nothing to do with the prize structure in the game, had no control over the game or access to confidential information about it, and as a member of the public, had nothing to do with the distribution of tickets in the game. You are correct that there is bias in the way people play games That's why we're doing things like posting this Truth vs. Myth series to provide accurate details and help people make informed decisions when they play the lottery. And in terms of the winners in the small town you referenced, it is likely that the game was popular with local folks because they knew a resident of their own town had designed the artwork on the tickets.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | April 14, 2025 at 08:54 AM
The tickets ARE NOT random. Years ago the design your own lottery ticket contest was won by an old lady in a town of just a couple hundred people. She bought her own ticket that she had designed as the winner of the contest and she hit the jackpot. It was in the Iowa Lottery News that she was told while buying tickets that there were more winners in her little town with only one retailer. She hit the jackpot three times. Of course that was not random. Human beings do decide where winning tickets go and if anybody believes it's random then you need an education. I managed a casino in Minnesota and I am an expert on biases involving games of chance.
Posted by: Aaron Weiss | April 10, 2025 at 07:36 PM
If that's the case, then how come over the last five years there have been at least 15 people from Cedar Rapids win big prizes? Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Waterloo, while we poor slobs in western Iowa get all of the duds
Posted by: Mike Ingram | April 10, 2025 at 09:59 AM
Hi, Chris. I just went to the "Did I Win" page for Mega Millions, entered a set of numbers, and received results back showing the winning numbers for April 8. In your original comment, you stated that there was no Mega Millions drawing on Tuesday, April 8, but the drawing occurred that night just as it had been scheduled. Please send a photo of your ticket with background about what you have experienced in trying to check it to our Webmaster account at [email protected]. Our folks there can share your inquiry with Lottery Security to review.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | April 10, 2025 at 08:39 AM