Here’s an interesting question that came our way about the images we post of players’ winning tickets in our games. We know that you’re always curious about winning tickets and what numbers and symbols are on them, so we often post images to give you a closer look.
In the process, however, we always blur or crop out the security codes on the tickets as you can see in the image shown here. Some folks have asked why.
From a purely technical perspective, the security codes aren’t part of the play area on a ticket, so they aren’t necessary to show the winning numbers or symbols involved. However, the codes are what identify each individual lottery ticket and they’re used in the prize-claim process.
We blur the codes out so we don’t inadvertently cause a complication in the lottery prize-claim process. So, while we know you’re curious about them, there is a reason that those codes are blurred out.
We show as much of the ticket as possible, but the codes will continue to be left out of the images for security purposes.
Now that our holiday-themed scratch games are in stores for the season, we’ve gotten player questions about the number of prizes available in them and their odds of winning.
Our holiday-themed games by design are only on the market for a short period of time – about four months. Many of our other scratch games are sold for a year or two or even longer.
We order smaller quantities of tickets in our holiday games, which means there will be a smaller number of prizes involved. But the key detail to note is that the odds of winning in our holiday games are very similar to those in our other games, so your playing experience won’t change.
“Crossword” games are always a favorite for players, so here is a list of this year’s four holiday-themed versions with their non-holiday counterparts. You’ll see how similar the odds are in them.
• $2 games: $20,000 Holiday Crossword and Four Corners Crossword. • $3 games: Candy Cane Crossword and Bonus Crossword. • $5 games: Peng-win Crossword and $50,000 Super Crossword. • $10 games: Very Merry Crossword and $100,000 Mega Crossword.
In the $2 games, the $20,000 holiday game has overall odds of winning of 1 in 3.42 while its non-holiday counterpart has overall odds of 1 in 3.33.
Both of the $3 Crossword games have the exact same overall odds of winning: 1 in 3.52.
At the $5 price point, the Peng-win Crossword game has overall odds of winning of 1 in 3.34 while its non-holiday counterpart has overall odds of 1 in 3.53.
And for the $10 games, Very Merry Crossword has overall odds of winning of 1 in 3.29 compared to overall odds of 1 in 3.30 for the non-holiday version.
We do our best to keep the game designs in line with each other because we want you to have the same “feel” as you play them. We know that’s part of the fun.
Then there are the folks who say they like our non-holiday games and want to see them come back. And they will!
Our holiday-themed games will only be on the market until early January, and then our other games will cycle back onto store shelves when the holidays are over.
A lottery player who wanted to buy tickets in a new scratch game said that when she couldn’t find tickets at her local store, she thought the game had been removed from sale because all the top prizes in it had already been claimed.
In reality, the store was just temporarily out of tickets in that particular game. It was popular and the location’s initial supply had sold out. The store was able to order more tickets and the game was available there again within a few days.
When a new scratch game is released, businesses that sell lottery tickets place orders for a supply of tickets to have available in the first days that the game is for sale. Stores do their best to estimate the number of tickets they’ll need, but sometimes a particular game may sell faster than expected.
Stores can and do place additional orders for more tickets, but it can take a few days for the next batch to arrive. When that happens, there can be temporary outages.
The customer was correct that when all of the top prizes in a particular scratch game have been claimed, the game is removed from sale here in Iowa.
In this particular instance, that wasn’t what had happened, and we hope that the next time she visits her local store, she’ll find the game available!
Next week, an interesting date will occur that involves A LOT of 2s, and we wonder what it may mean for a couple of our lotto games.
It’s being called TwosDay: Feb. 22, 2022.
On dates that involve repeat numbers, we’ve often seen players choose identical sets of numbers in our Pick 3 and Pick 4 games. And when sales with those same numbers reach a certain point, they’re considered “sold out” in our system. But why?
On Sept. 9, 2009, the combinations of 9-9-9 sold out in Pick 3 and 9-9-0-9 sold out in Pick 4. The same thing has happened with the corresponding numbers on Aug. 8, 2008, and July 7, 2007. When a set of numbers is sold out, it means that the liability limit has been reached. Lotteries have liability limits in Pick 3 and Pick 4 games to protect the integrity of the games and the proceeds that the lottery raises for state causes.
The liability limits don’t get hit very often, but when they do, that particular set of numbers will be sold out for that particular drawing, and you’ll have to choose a different combination to play that time around. The combination will be available again for the next drawing, assuming that the liability limit isn’t reached the next time around as well.
And even though a particular set of numbers may see a surge in popularity, it doesn’t make it luckier than another play. The odds of winning are the same for any play in our games. We as human beings just like patterns, and dates like 2-22-22 always catch our attention.
We got an interesting blast from the past this week from a woman who found an old lottery ticket while going through her mother’s things after her mom had passed away.
With the ticket was a note from her mom stating that it was the very first lottery ticket ever sold in Iowa. The woman wondered if it was true. We did a little research, and found out that we can’t answer her question for sure. It may have been the first ticket sold at the Indianola gas station where her mom worked at the time, but that’s as far as our review in that regard can go.
The first lottery tickets sold in Iowa were in the "Scratch, Match & Win" scratch game. It was a $1 game with grey tickets featuring a hand holding a coin and scratching a ticket.
That game was the Iowa Lottery’s debut product on Aug. 22, 1985, the first day that lottery tickets were sold in Iowa. It was the only game sold by the Iowa Lottery at the time. And while the kick-off celebration that day was at the Iowa State Fair, lottery ticket sales got underway at the thousands of retail locations across the state that sold tickets.
We know that during the first week of sales, lottery players bought 6.4 million tickets in that game, and by Nov. 1 when the game ended, they had purchased 28.1 million tickets in it.
It’s always fun to look back and see how much things have changed in the past 35 years. Thank you to this player for a walk down memory lane!
On National Mom And Pop Business Owners Day, we want to recognize the many small-business owners and family-owned retailers we work with to bring the Iowa Lottery to you!
Without these retailers, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do – from raising millions for state causes to awarding record amounts of prizes to players.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are more than 30 million small businesses employing nearly 60 million people. These business owners display hard work, dedication and a commitment to their customers, and for that we are grateful!
A few of these owners are pictured in the photo above: Modteets “Mod” Williams, Jr., owner of Mod’s Market in Cedar Rapids; Deb and Mike, owners of Joe’s Quick Shop, Centerville; and Holly, owner of Holly’s Town Super Market in Wyoming.
We’ve heard from some players recently asking where they can find their favorite scratch game.
You may have noticed that nine new holiday scratch games went on sale Oct. 2 and two more will go on sale Nov. 6. Nonwinning tickets in all 11 holiday scratch games are eligible to win cash prizes in our Secret Santa Play It Again® promotion.
Because of this, we ask that all of our retailers across the state sell at least some of our holiday scratch games. And since many retailers have limited space to display lottery games, some scratch games must be removed to make room for the new ones. Therefore, we’ve pulled some of our other games for the time being.
Don’t worry, though, we haven’t gotten rid of those other games for good. As you can imagine, the holiday games only run for a short time, so our other games, and their remaining prizes, will be coming back in early January!
It’s funny how things can sometimes come in waves, like the questions we’ve gotten this week about a certain set of numbers on our website. The numbers have been on the site for years and we haven’t changed their format, but for some reason, people noticed them this week and wondered what they mean.
I’m referring to the Remaining Prizes page on our website where we list prizes of $100 or more that are still up for grabs in our scratch, pull-tab and InstaPlay games. On that page, you can see the number of larger prizes that have been won and those that remain unclaimed. (The list is updated once daily, Monday through Friday.)
We list games alphabetically on that page but also include other details, such as the price per ticket and the game number. And it’s that number that apparently has people talking.
Our games have names like “$250,000 Riches” or “Black Ice,” but to keep track of them in our databases, each game also is assigned a number. So, $250,000 Riches is game No. 925 and Black Ice is game No. 302. It’s simply an identifying number for that particular game. It doesn’t signify anything else.
We list the game numbers on that page because we often have games with similar names, like these currently on the market: Cash In, Cash Lift and Cash Line. The game numbers help differentiate the details involved and help players easily find the information they’re seeking.
I’ve asked our Web Team to add an additional header on the page so it will be clear that they’re simply identifying game numbers, but in the meantime, this blog entry can answer the question!
We’ve got breaking news on the technology front today: Now we’ve got an Apple AND an Android version of our app you can use to check the outcome of your Iowa Lottery tickets and get the latest details about our games and promotions.
It’s a project we’ve been working on for months, and we’re excited that everything has gone live! Both versions of the app were published late last night/early today on iTunes and Play Store. The app is called the “Iowa Lottery’s LotteryPlus,” and here are direct links to where you can find it:
Some of you may know that we’ve had an iTunes app for a few years now, and we’ve been working on the companion technology for Android. So even if you’ve used our iTunes app before, check it out today because it’s gotten a serious update that includes a lot of new features.
Here are some of the functions in our official mobile app:
Google Play Store version supports Android 4.1 and above.
iTunes version supports iOS 8.0 and above.
Check your tickets to see if you’re a winner using the barcode scanner.
Use the “ePlayslip” feature to design a ticket for your favorite Iowa Lottery game on the go. Pick your favorite numbers or shake your device to use the numbers generator. Saving your play generates a bar code that you can scan at any lottery retailer when you’re ready to purchase your ticket.
Get current jackpots and winning numbers for all of the Iowa Lottery’s games, including Powerball®, Mega Millions®, Hot Lotto®, Lucky For Life®, All or Nothing™, and Iowa’s Pick 3 and Iowa Pick 4.
Find an Iowa Lottery retailer close to you.
Learn about the Iowa Lottery’s latest promotions, scratch tickets and more.
Meeting our winners is a time to celebrate here at the lottery, and it’s always fun to hear their stories about how they won, whether anyone believed them at first and what they plan to do with their prize money. But we also celebrate with the retail locations that sell the winning tickets because it’s a big event for them, too!
Here’s one of our most recent examples: We got to make a big sign that has since gone up inside Smokin’ Joes in North Liberty. This shot is of Melissa, the store manager, when we gave her the sign.
You may recall that Smokin’ Joe’s is the spot where Karl Krumbholz of Cedar Rapids bought his ticket that won the $2 million Powerball® prize he claimed on St. Patrick’s Day. Karl is a regular customer at the store and Melissa sold him his winning ticket!
The sign is a nice reminder that luck hit at that store. (And in addition to its new sign, Smokin’ Joe’s got a $2,000 bonus from the lottery for selling the $2 million-winning ticket.)
Congrats again to Karl and Smokin’ Joe’s! What a fun story.
We’ve received some inquiries from players in the last few days who wondered where they could find their favorite holiday-themed scratch game from this past season. The short answer is that sales in our holiday scratch games have ended to make room for new tickets.
As part of our standard procedures, we end sales in our scratch and pull-tab games for a few different reasons, one of which is when the last top prize in a game has been claimed. We don’t want a game on the market if you don’t still have the chance to win its top prize!
In any given year, we also will have specially-themed games -- like our holiday games -- that are only set to run for a short period of time. Our holiday games come off the market in early January each year because it just doesn’t make sense to keep selling them once the holidays have passed. That would be like selling a snow-themed game in July!
We have dozens of games for sale at any one time, but there are only so many spots available for them in our vending machines and ticket dispensers. That means some retail locations simply don’t have enough room for all the games that are out there, so the store can decide which games it wants to sell.
We’ve also heard from some players recently who asked why we stopped selling our holiday games before the entry period for our Jingle Bills promotion had ended. We have a holiday promotion each year, and this time around, we extended the entry deadline to give players more time to enter their tickets. We know that the holiday season is a busy time for everyone and we’ve heard from players in the past who said they’d like a few extra days to catch their breath and enter their tickets.
We do our best to respond to player inquiries and make adjustments to our procedures whenever we can if taking that step will help.
By the way, we just conducted the final drawings in our Jingle Bills promotion on Wednesday and the winners are posted on our website. Thanks for playing and congratulations to all the winners!
We’ve got some real planners here in Iowa! We’ve heard from a couple folks who tell us they are definitely planning to win the lottery as part of the group they buy tickets with, and they want to know if some members of the group can choose the lump-sum option for a jackpot prize while the rest of the members take the annuity option. The short answer is that it’s an either/or situation: The whole group needs to choose one option or the other.
When you win a jackpot, whether it’s with a ticket you bought on your own or as part of a group, we only issue one check for the winnings. There are a variety of security and financial rules in place requiring that to happen.
If you’re part of a group of 25, we don’t cut 25 checks, we just give you one check and the members of your group then divide up the money from there. The entire group has to decide on either the cash or annuity option before the prize is claimed.
And to ensure that one person isn’t stuck with all the liability for that taxable income, all members of the group sign an IRS Form 5754 so they’re listed for tax-reporting purposes. On the form, each person states how much of the prize they’re claiming.
We keep a list of tips about group play on our website. Click here to check them out.
Here’s a question that came our way this week: Are the results from our drawings always posted at the same time on our website?
The quick answer is that we obviously want people to have our drawing results as quickly as possible, but there are realities involved that mean we can’t always post the information at exactly the same time each day.
Sometimes it takes longer to balance all of the sales figures for a particular drawing. Sometimes we might have a new staffer at work who is understandably taking a little longer to go through procedures the first few times. Sometimes automated systems may not run as they should, and that means that processes have to be done manually, which can take more time.
We’ll continue to do our best to provide our results as quickly as we can. But I’ve said this before about other things and it applies here as well: As long as human beings are involved in any process, things will vary a little.
One way to get the results without having to check our website is to sign up for the lottery’s winning numbers emails, so our drawing results will come to your inbox each morning. Click here to learn how to sign up for those emails.
Our first $1 million winner of 2016 is Joel Dominguez of Sioux City. Joel said he bought his easy-pick Powerball® ticket at his local Hy-Vee and couldn’t believe he matched so many numbers. He was just one number away from winning Saturday’s $947.9 million record Powerball jackpot.
Initial estimates for tomorrow's Powerball jackpot have been raised again, with the prize currently set at a world-record $1.5 billion annuity, $930 million cash option.
Obviously sales in Iowa in recent weeks have been extremely strong and continue to follow the jackpot up.
WHAT DO SALES LOOK LIKE, EXACTLY?
Statewide lottery sales on Sunday and Monday of this week were about four times higher than they had been on each of those days the prior week.
To give some perspective to the sales figures, in fiscal year 2015, the Iowa Lottery sold a total of $52.2 million in Powerball tickets. Since the jackpot began its current run on Nov. 5, the lottery has sold nearly $25 million in Powerball tickets. That’s almost half a year’s sales in about two months.
TOP 10 IOWA RETAILERS FOR POWERBALL SALES
Retailers are extremely busy selling Powerball tickets in the lead-up to tomorrow's drawing. Some stores are asking customers to form two lines – one for Powerball tickets and the other for all other business. Some stores are only selling easy-pick tickets, which are a faster transaction and can move customers through the line more quickly. We at the lottery appreciate the hard work of all our retailers at this busy time and are supportive of their efforts to assist their customers and manage traffic flow within their locations. We ask everyone to be patient in the next couple days -- we know it will continue to be busy.
Here are the Top 10 Iowa retailers for Powerball sales from Jan. 3-11:
$34,937 Hy-Vee, 20 Wilson Ave. in Cedar Rapids $32,330 Hy-Vee, 1725 Jordan Creek Pkwy. in West Des Moines $31,919 Hy-Vee, 5050 Edgewood Road in Cedar Rapids $31,697 Hy-Vee, 1843 Johnson Ave. N.W. in Cedar Rapids $31,667 Big 10 Mart, 999 Middle Road in Bettendorf $30,475 Hy-Vee, 4605 Fleur Drive in Des Moines $29,685 Hy-Vee, 2900 Devils Glen Road in Bettendorf $29,468 Hy-Vee, 3600 Iowa Highway 151 in Marion $28,767 Hy-Vee, 8701 Douglas Ave. in Urbandale $27,681 Hy-Vee 1745 Madison Ave. in Council Bluffs
The holiday season can be a time for deep thinking, so here’s a philosophical question we get from time to time: Why do states have lotteries, anyway? There’s a really long history behind the answer, but I’ll do my best to keep it brief here. It comes down to regulation and revenues.
Lotteries have operated here in the United States since the earliest days of our country. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock all had their own lotteries to raise money for important causes, including the Revolutionary War, the building of roads and bridges and construction of our country’s earliest schools and universities. There was a severe cash shortage in the Colonies, and I mean that literally. In fact, when the first shot of the Revolutionary War was fired, there were only two banks in all of the Colonies. Then, as now, lotteries were an effective way to gather cash to pay for big projects.
But in the late 1800s, scandals involving privately operated and unregulated lotteries led to legislation that effectively banned lotteries in America for about 70 years. But lottery entertainment didn’t go away during that time. It just went underground -- and it often was offered by entities that weren’t doing good things with the proceeds (think organized crime).
Modern lotteries arrived in 1963 when the state of New Hampshire implemented a state sweepstakes or lottery. Through the years, more states have continued to pass legislation allowing lotteries, and today, there are lotteries in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
With state regulation, lotteries are open to scrutiny, with Board meetings and legislative hearings that provide public access. With access comes information about your state’s lottery, how it operates and where the money goes.
If you’ve ever got a question about the Iowa Lottery, just give us a shout. We’ll do our best to get the answer.
Raise your hand if you’re wearing the colors of your favorite football team today.
It’s football season and you know what that means – tailgating! Employees at lottery headquarters held a potluck tailgate luncheon Thursday, and team spirit was definitely on display with many employees wearing the colors of their favorite football team.
Good luck to your team this weekend – whoever that may be!
One of our followers on Twitter asked a question that we said we’d answer here on the blog because it takes a little more explanation than we can fit in a 140-character message. The question came from a man named David who said: “Why is there a cutoff time for when you can buy lottery tickets? I don’t get it.”
Our initial answer back was: “The cut-off time is in place to stop sales before a drawing is held – there has to be a point when sales stop b 4 draw.” And that’s true. But here’s the rest of the story:
I’ve blogged before about the many layers of security that go into a lottery drawing. One of the steps required is for the lottery to verify that all sales figures balance before the drawing can begin. We’re helping to ensure that all plays for a particular drawing are accounted for and that everything is ready to go.
As computer speeds and technology have increased, it requires less time than it used to for that to occur. Today, you can generally purchase tickets here in Iowa up until about an hour before the drawing in one of our lotto games. Several years ago, the sales cut-off time was two hours before the drawing, but we’ve been able to reduce that, which we hope has been a convenience for our players and retailers.
I would imagine there will always be some time required for balancing and verification before a drawing can happen, but maybe someday the time involved will be even shorter than it is now.
The exact sales cut-off times vary from state to state, depending upon the requirements in that particular state. Check your state lottery’s website for the information that applies in your area.
We’ll continue to do our best to keep the time period involved for that here in Iowa as short as possible.
Fans of the “Super Crossword” scratch game have noticed there are two versions of the game in stores right now and some players have asked us what’s up with that. The quick answer is that a newer version of the game is replacing an older edition and everything is working just as it should. But here are all the details:
The lottery has dozens of games for sale at any one time, and throughout the year, we replace ending games with new ones as part of our standard procedures. We’ve blogged about that process before.
In the case of the $5 Super Crossword game, the wood-grained version of it (Game 842) began sales in March 2014. It’s been very popular and tickets in that version are nearly sold out, but some retail locations still have a supply left.
Game 842 is being replaced by Game 893, a rainbow-striped version of Super Crossword that debuted April 16. Tickets in that newer version are already on sale in many locations and will be added to our game mix in others as they run through their remaining supply of Game 842. If the last top prize in the game were to be claimed while tickets are still on hand, Game 842 would be officially ended and removed from sale.
We know you like Super Crossword, so we’re definitely keeping it in our game mix!
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!
Here at the lottery we love winners and we love sharing our winners’ stories.
We do this in a variety of ways. One of the most recognizable ways is by displaying pictures of our recent winners on our video screens or through posters in more than 2,400 retailer locations across the state. We also feature many winners of $10,000 or more on our website, and this list is updated regularly as new winners come and claim their prizes.
If you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ you know that we also regularly post photos of winners on these platforms, as well as information about where winning tickets were recently sold.
Another way we highlight winners is through one-minute radio commercials. These spots include the voices of lottery staffers talking about recent winners of $10,000 or more, as well as soundbites from the winners themselves! There is a different spot each day of the week that highlights different winners from all across Iowa. And every couple of weeks, lottery staffers create new radio spots that highlight a new group of winners.
We call these radio segments “Winning Minute” and here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how they are produced. If you’ve heard our Winning Minute segments before you might recognize one of the lottery voices in the clip – Lottery CEO Terry Rich. Terry announces the start and end of each one of our Winning Minute segments.
The rest of the narration is done by lottery staffers Kim Vore and Kevin Kirkpatrick – the female and male voices, respectively. Kim and Kevin produce and record these spots and distribute them to radio stations every couple of weeks. (I’ve included a photo of Kim and Kevin recording the latest segments).
The Winning Minute segments can be heard at least once a day on more than 70 radio stations across the state. So the next time you hear one of our Winning Minute segments on your favorite radio station, you’ll know the voices of the lottery staffers who created it!
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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!
