ialottery blog

Fly With Cy Winners In Texas!

From enjoying a rooftop pre-party (with tacos, of course!), to seeing a football game in one of the world’s biggest stadiums and getting to explore the city, our Fly with Cy winners officially took in the sights and sounds of Austin. Click on the video above to hear them talk about their trip and see them in Texas!

#FlyWithCy #WooHooForYou #Cyclones #IowaStateFootball 

We’ll Be On the Grand Concourse Today At The State Fair

It’s Veterans Day at the Iowa State Fair, and we’ve got a whole day’s worth of activities to celebrate the difference you’ve helped us make through the lottery proceeds for Iowa veterans and their families.

First up, our State Fair booth that you can see in the photo here is open at the State Fair today from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. We’re in the big white exhibition tent along the Grand Concourse. The map at the end of this blog entry shows you the tent’s spot in front of the Fair’s Service Center.

We’ll be selling and cashing scratch, lotto, and InstaPlay tickets, and we can help you enter our promotions if you need those details. We’ll have the scratch games available that can get you entries into our Iowa Ironmen Suite promotion, Fly with Cy promotion, and Explore Iowa promotion.

The Polaris vehicles that are the top prizes in our Explore Iowa promotion also will be on display at our tent, so feel free to check them out!

Anyone who makes at least a $10 lottery purchase at our booth gets to spin the prize wheel for merchandise prizes, and we’ve got pull-tab tickets as prizes on that wheel!

And remember that a portion of each $1 spent on lottery tickets in Iowa goes right into the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund to benefit our state’s veterans and their families. We’re proud to share that to date, the Iowa Lottery has raised nearly $35 million for that meaningful cause!

We’ll also be making a couple presentations at the State Fair today to recognize the Veterans Trust Fund and spread the word about the help available through it. One presentation will be just before the Veterans parade at 11 a.m. this morning and the other will be just before the Iowa Military Veterans Band performs at 3 p.m. at the Susan Knapp Amphitheater.

Please join us in thanking and honoring veterans today to make their day at the Fair that much more special!

Ticket To Austin: How You Can Have A Chance To ‘Fly With Cy’

Last month, we announced the Iowa Ironmen Suite promotion giving folks the chance to win football prize packages to two big rivalry games for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Today, the focus turns to Iowa State, and specifically, the chance to win an exclusive VIP trip to Austin for the Iowa State -Texas football game.

The Fly with Cy promotion has started today! Members of our free VIP Club can enter the promotion with nonwinning tickets in the “Hit It Big!” scratch game. We’ll draw for the Fly with Cy winners on Sept. 15.

Fifty winners and their guests will get to go on a private chartered flight that leaves Des Moines on Oct. 14 and returns from Austin on Oct. 16. Included in the trip package are:

• a 2-night hotel stay for two at the Hilton Garden Inn in the Austin University Capitol District,
• a reception at the hotel on the evening of Oct. 14,
• 2 tickets to the Iowa State - Texas football game on Oct. 15 at DKR Texas Memorial Stadium,
• Hotel and stadium transfers,
• Merchandise swag bag.

Each trip package is valued at nearly $7,300!

Entries can be made into the promotion until just before 10 a.m. on Sept. 13. We’ll post the winners’ names as soon as we have the details available after the drawing on Sept. 15.

Last year, Fly with Cy winners and their guests had a ball going to an ISU game in Las Vegas! We look forward to the fun this year in Austin.

(And for Hawkeye fans, remember that the entry period in the Iowa Ironmen Suite promotion runs through 8:59 a.m. on Aug. 17. You’ve still got time to enter!)

Hawkeye Football Tix In Ironmen Suite Up For Grabs In New Promotion

Iowa football tickets to watch two big rivalry games from a suite are up for grabs in a new Prize Zone Promotion that started today.

The Iowa Ironmen Suite promotion offers 34 VIP football packages, each for two tickets in the Ironmen Suite at Kinnick Stadium for either the Iowa St.-Iowa game on Sept. 10 or the Michigan-Iowa game on Oct. 1. There are 17 prize packages per game and you’ll choose the game you prefer at the time you enter.

Players can enter the promotion with nonwinning tickets in the $10 “Cash” scratch game. Each eligible ticket entered counts as one entry into the promotion. You can enter tickets for a chance to attend either game, and you could win tickets to both! But you can win only one ticket package per game.

Each VIP prize package includes food and non-alcoholic beverages, $200 spending cash, two lottery bags with merchandise, and state withholding paid on behalf of each winner for a total prize package value of $1,152.63.

The entry period runs until 8:59 a.m. on Aug. 17. The drawing will follow on Aug. 18.

And for Cyclone fans, stay tuned! We won’t leave you out of the fun this year.

Where Are We Going Next? The List Is On Our Events Page

As the summer goes on and we’re making more stops around the state on our Explore Iowa tour, we’ve gotten questions from some folks asking if we’ll make it to their area.

The short answer is that we’re continuing to add new stops over time and we’re doing our best to hit all areas of Iowa. Our campaign is called Explore Iowa, after all!

To see the list of our upcoming events, please visit the Special Events page on our website here.

Some of the events are at retail locations while others are at football games, baseball games, local festivals and auto races.

We’ve already been to Waverly, Fort Dodge, Des Moines, Mason City, Council Bluffs and Davenport, to name a few. This week we’ll be in Cedar Rapids, Waukee and Cedar Falls.

We’ll keep updating the list of events as summer goes on. At some of the stops, we’re doing special presentations to highlight the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund, one of the most important beneficiaries of lottery proceeds to state causes.

We sell tickets in our Explore Iowa scratch game at each stop, and all lottery products are available at the events at retail locations. And yes, our prize wheel is there! With a qualifying purchase, you can spin the wheel to win lottery merchandise.

‘Tail Gator’ Offers Primo Football Packages

A new lottery promotion that just kicked off today offers you the chance to go in style to an Iowa, Iowa State or Northern Iowa home football game this fall.

The $1 “Tail Gator” instant-scratch game is making its debut today and along with it, we’re offering a new promotion by that same name. Iowa Lottery VIP Club members can enter nonwinning Tail Gator tickets for a chance to win one of nine ultimate fan packages to college football games Nov. 23 in Iowa. Three fan packages will be up for grabs to each of these games that day: Kansas-Iowa St. in Ames; Michigan-Iowa in Iowa City; and W. Illinois-N. Iowa in Cedar Falls.

Each package is valued at more than $500 and includes four premium seats at the game, a parking pass, pregame hospitality, food, team merchandise, spending cash and more. Hey, we know that Iowans love college football and our Tail Gator winners will have a great time supporting their favorite team with friends at the game.

Tickets in the Tail Gator game should definitely catch your eye, as you can see from the picture here! They feature artwork of a colorful alligator all decked out in football gear, playing on the gridiron. You have the chance to win a cash prize of up to $2,000 on each ticket. And if you don’t win an instant prize, you can use nonwinning tickets as entries in the Tail Gator promotion on the lottery website.

With each entry, you can choose whether you’d like to win a Tail Gator Football Fan Experience at Iowa State University, The University of Iowa or The University of Northern Iowa.

You can enter the promotion through noon on Nov. 4. To enter, you’ll need to join or already be a member of the lottery’s free VIP Club. On the lottery website, you’ll key in the entry code and ticket number from a nonwinning Tail Gator ticket.

We’ll hold the promotion’s drawings on Nov. 6 and winners’ information will be posted on the lottery’s website. Winners also will receive an email from the lottery at the address included in their VIP Club profile.
 
A few requirements to keep in mind:
•    You can only enter the promotion on the lottery’s website. Hand-delivered tickets or entries that are mailed in will not be accepted.
•    You can use each ticket only once as an eligible entry.
•    And, while you can enter multiple times, you can win only one prize package in the promotion.