Our celebration of the Iowa Lottery’s 30th birthday is amping up again today, this time focusing on lotto players, since our promotion earlier this summer focused on scratch games.
The “30-Day Ticket Giveaway” started this morning, giving players in the Mega Millions®, Hot Lotto® and All or Nothing™ games the chance to win a free easy-pick play when they make a purchase. Here’s how it works:
When a player buys a ticket in one of those three games and their ticket is the 30th sold statewide in that same game, the lottery terminal will play a special “Surprise! Player Bonus!” sound and then automatically print a fee, $1 easy-pick ticket for the next drawing in that game. It’s that simple and it’s FREE!
This special offer began at the start of business this morning and continues until 11:59 p.m. central time on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Please note that the free ticket applies to the 30th ticket sold in each of those games statewide, not at one particular location. So have fun with it and be listening for the Player Bonus recording from the terminal!
30 Somethings
August 24, 2015
August 21, 2015
Flashback Friday!
We’re taking a trip down memory lane right now, flashing back to 1985. Tomorrow marks 30 years since lottery tickets made their debut in Iowa!
It was back on Aug. 22, 1985, that things got started with a kick-off celebration at the Iowa State Fair. We just found some old pictures from that day, so check them out! I’ve always been told it was a rainy day, and I think these shots do a good job of capturing it. Wet weather obviously didn’t stop people from standing in long lines to buy our state’s first lottery tickets.
I love the middle shot: Don’t have a table where you can play your lottery tickets? No problem, the shoulder of the person beside you will do!
We started our anniversary celebration earlier this year with our “30 Somethings” scratch game and promotion. And we’re not done yet. Check back here on Monday for details about the newest way you can get in on the fun.
August 05, 2015
Bush, Clinton … and the Lottery?
Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, now has a different Bush-Clinton pairing than the others you might be thinking of: They’re lottery winners.
I blogged about one of the winners last week: He’s William Clinton of Cedar Rapids, who claimed a top prize of $100,000 in our “Vegas Game Book” scratch game. He won the fourth of eight top prizes in that $20 game.
And then yesterday, Dusty Bush of Des Moines claimed a $30,000 prize after being selected as the grand-prize winner in our “30 Somethings” promotion. Dusty doesn’t take credit for his big win, though. He says his wife, Manila, is the lucky one. It turns out they’re a team when it comes to enteringtickets into their VIP Club account. Dusty says he doesn’t type, so Manila enters their tickets into lottery drawings – and he says she brings them luck in the process.
Dusty predicts they’ll be back at the lottery soon when they win Powerball®. We’ll have to wait and see if that comes true!
Bush, Clinton and Iowa. Who would have guessed?!
July 06, 2015
The Latest Round Of Winners Are …
We held the drawings today to determine the second set of 30 winners in our “30 Somethings” promotion. Now there’s one more round to go on Aug. 3 -- plus the grand-prize drawing that same day. We can’t forget that!
Click here to see today’s list of winners and find out who’s a wordy 30, a dirty 30 or a verde 30! (The 30 winners from our June 4 drawing also are on that page.)
Remember that any entry you make in the promotion through 11:59 a.m. on July 30 also counts as an entry into the grand-prize drawing.
Thanks for playing and being part of our 30th anniversary fun!
June 16, 2015
Instagram & Pinterest Contest This Week!
Now that we’ve made our official debut on Instagram and Pinterest, we’re holding a contest this week exclusively for our followers on those platforms. It’s our way to thanking you for connecting with us – and we plan to keep the fun going!
This week’s contest started yesterday and continues through 10 a.m. on Friday. We’re giving away five prize packs of $20 each in the “30 Somethings” scratch game plus some cool lottery swag.
And as we move ahead, look for our social media contests each month that you can enter from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram or Pinterest! Our first contest involving all those platforms will start on Monday, July 13. Be sure to give us a like or follow so you’ll stay up to date on all our lottery happenings and contests!
June 04, 2015
And The Winners Are ...
It’s time for the big reveal!
We held the drawings today to determine the first 30 winners in our “30 Somethings” promotion that’s part of the lottery’s 30th anniversary celebration. Click here to see the winners list and find out who’s a curdy 30, a birdie 30 or a verde 30! Maybe YOUR name is on the list!
And remember, today’s drawing is just getting things started. We’ve got two more drawings to go in the promotion for another 60 prizes in July and August leading up to the grand-prize drawing for a $30,000 winner on Aug. 3. Any entry you make in the promotion through 11:59 a.m. on July 30 also counts as an entry in the grand-prize drawing.
Thanks for playing and being part of our anniversary fun!
June 01, 2015
Takin' It To The Streets
We blogged last month about our 30th anniversary, and now we’re taking the celebration to the streets!
We’ll hold 30 events across Iowa this summer to spread the fun and thank you for being part of what makes our state so great! Check out the list of events we keep on our promotions page to see where we’ll head next. We’ll add more events as the summer goes along, so if you don’t see a stop in your area yet, check back. We may get it on the list.
We’ll have a lottery tent at most of these events, so if you find the tent like you see here, you’re probably in the right place!
May 21, 2015
Hey! Did I Really Only Win $2? Answer: No…
Now that our “30 Somethings” game has been out there for a couple weeks, we’re hearing from folks who want to know about all the stars on their tickets, and exactly what those mean. The picture here is a great example. Someone posted it on our Facebook page, and a commenter wondered if the person had won $2. Actually, the player won $20 – that’s $2 per star for each of the 10 stars on the ticket.
And that’s the case for anyone who finds a star on their 30 Somethings ticket – you win the prize shown below the symbol for EACH star that you find! And don’t forget to scratch the bonus area at the top of your ticket – another prize could be waiting for you there!
The rule of thumb is that the minimum prize you can win in one of our games will always be at least the price of the ticket. And since 30 Somethings is a $5 game, prizes in it start at $5 and go up to $30,000. Now, not every ticket in the game will win a prize, but remember that you can enter nonwinning 30 Somethings tickets in our Play It Again® promotion that offers 91 prizes in all and runs through early August.
May 08, 2015
The Way Things Were ...
As I was pulling together details for Monday’s announcement about the lottery’s 30th anniversary, the very first lottery tickets in Iowa caught my eye, in terms of how different things look today!
Here’s a picture to show what I’m talking about – check out “Scratch, Match & Win” compared to today’s games! Even the smallest tickets we have on the market today are much bigger than those in Scratch, Match & Win, which made its debut back on Aug. 22, 1985. It takes five tickets in that game to match up with those in a lot of our games today.
And the world has apparently become a lot more colorful through the years, too. (In reality, I think printing techniques have just improved a lot since 1985, but it IS interesting to see how far things have come.)
Can’t wait to see what lottery tickets will look like 30 years from now!
May 04, 2015
We’re Turning 30 – And Celebrating With A New Game & Promotion
Time really does fly! The Iowa Lottery is turning 30 this year, so I’m using today’s blog entry to take a look back and see what how it’s all added up.
Legislation authorizing a lottery in Iowa was signed into law on April 18, 1985, and Iowa Lottery sales began with a kick-off celebration on Aug. 22, 1985, at the Iowa State Fair. But did you know that the push for a lottery in our state goes back a lot further than that?
It was in 1972, the same year that we put Iowa in the win column for President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign, that Iowans voted by greater than a 2-to-1 margin to amend the state Constitution to repeal a lottery prohibition.
Through the years, the lottery has created life-changing moments for prize winners, provided valuable help in the form of sales commissions to the thousands of Iowa businesses that sell lottery tickets, and raised significant proceeds for the state causes that benefit all Iowans.
There’s been an interesting constant that entire time: An instant-scratch game was the first product offered by the Iowa Lottery back in 1985, and scratch tickets are still our top-selling product today. In fiscal year 2014, scratch tickets accounted for 60 percent of lottery sales, lotto games made up 35 percent of sales, and pull-tab games were 5 percent of annual sales.
To celebrate our 30th birthday, today we’re launching the “30 Somethings” game. It’s a $5 scratch game tied to a promotion by the same name. Understanding today’s emphasis on “green” products, tickets in the 30 Somethings game are printed on paper stock made from 60 percent recycled fibers (35 percent post-consumer). You’ll notice the tickets’ unique look and feel – they’re a lot like brown sack paper used for things like grocery bags or lunch sacks.
Nonwinning tickets in the 30 Somethings game can be entered in a Play It Again promotion offering a total of 91 prizes, including a grand prize of $30,000. The promotion just started at noon today and concludes with a grand-prize drawing on Aug. 3.
Here is a look by the numbers at 30 years of lottery history in Iowa (figures current through March 31, 2015, unless otherwise noted):
• $6.3 billion Total Iowa Lottery sales
• $3.4 billion Total prizes won by Iowa Lottery players
• $1.6 billion Total lottery proceeds to Iowa causes
• $474.7 million Total lottery sales commissions paid to Iowa businesses that sell lottery tickets
• $241 million Largest lottery prize won in Iowa to date. The Shipping 20, a group of co-workers from the Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, claimed that Powerball® jackpot on June 20, 2012.
• 6.4 million Number of lottery tickets sold during the lottery’s first week of sales
• 2,391 Number of retail locations in Iowa that sell lottery tickets (current as of April 30, 2015)
• 1,570 Number of Iowa Lottery tickets that have won prizes of $100,000 or more (through April 2015)
• 127 Number of Iowa Lottery tickets that have won prizes of $1 million or more (through April 2015)
• 900 Number of instant-scratch games sold in Iowa from 1985 through present
• 237 Number of pull-tab games sold in Iowa from the product’s introduction in 1987 through present
• 19 Number of lotto games sold in Iowa from the product’s introduction in 1986 through present
• 9 Number of Hot Lotto® jackpots won by Iowa Lottery players to date
• 8 Number of Powerball jackpots won by Iowa Lottery players to date
