ialottery blog

A Milk Run With More: Errand Ends With $10,000 Lottery Prize

There’s something about the every-day aspect of this story, especially during these unusual times, that brings a smile. A southeast Iowa couple has taken home a $10,000 prize from a lottery scratch ticket purchased during a milk run.

Heather Love of Morning Sun claimed the prize earlier this week. She said that her husband, Nick, bought the ticket when he stopped at a local convenience store for milk on the way home from work. She said that Nick rarely buys scratch tickets but decided to get one that day in the “$100,000 Mega Crossword” game.

Heather said she was the one who scratched the ticket later that night after dinner. She thought they’d won big, but said it didn’t really start to sink in until she scanned the ticket on the lottery’s mobile app and it displayed the message: "Congratulations, you won $10,000!"

She said that she and Nick argued good-naturedly over which one of them would actually claim the prize, but agreed that they would use the winnings to buy new carpet and flooring for their home.

Heather said that winning a big prize “kind of makes your heart flutter.” She said she has often heard about people winning the lottery, but now it’s real to her.

Congratulations, Heather and Nick! Thank you for giving us a smile with your story!

He ALMOST Let His Wife's Car Roll Away After Winning A $100,000 Prize

A northern Iowa man came THIS CLOSE to having to explain to his wife why he let her vehicle roll away!

The story started with Travis Hovey of Riceville doing something to help: He went to a local convenience store to fuel up his wife’s car. While he was inside the store paying for the gas, he decided to buy a lottery scratch ticket.

Travis said he scratched the ticket when he got back out to the car and saw what he thought was a $100,000 prize in the play area.

Travis says he almost forgot to put the vehicle in park before he ran back into the store to have the clerks there double-check his ticket! It turns out he was right: He won one of the top prizes of $100,000 in the “Cash Blast” scratch game.

After confirming his win, Travis said he went right home to share the news with his wife, Tammy. And he got her car there safely!

Travis bought his winning ticket at Casey’s 208 W. Main St. in Riceville. He said that he and Tammy plan to use the lottery winnings to pay bills and retire debt.

Such A Relatable Story: He Had To Check His Winning Ticket A BUNCH Of Times

This player’s story made me smile because it’s just so relatable. I think we can all imagine ourselves in his situation – and the disbelief we might have!

An eastern Iowa man who claimed a $10,000 prize at our Cedar Rapids office said that after he played his scratch ticket, he checked it and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. So, he scanned it three more times on the lottery’s mobile app and then went back into the gas station where he bought it to have them check it, too.

Louis Janecek II of Shellsburg said he just wanted to be sure! In the end, he realized he was the winner of a $10,000 prize. He claimed the eighth prize of $10,000 available in “The Perfect Gift” holiday scratch game.

Louis bought his winning ticket at Palo Mini Mart, 1204 First St. in Palo.

He said he plans to use his winnings to pay bills and buy Christmas gifts for his four children. Louis said his lottery win will just make everything that much nicer for the holidays.

Congratulations, Louis! I’m thinking that your big win may finally seem real by now!

Player Questions: What About The Odds In Your Holiday Games?

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.

Player Question: When New Games Come Out, Do Your Dispensers Just Expand?

Here’s an interesting question that came our way on social media this week: When new scratch games are released like the five games that hit store shelves this week, do the lottery’s ticket dispensers expand to allow more room? The quick answer is no, but here is the backstory.

New scratch games and pull-tab games are introduced throughout the year to give players new chances to win prizes and keep the mix of games fun and entertaining. Variety is the spice of life for today’s consumers, and people vote with their pocketbooks when it comes to the items they choose to buy. Games that have been on the market for awhile generally have lower sales than our newest games because people like to try new things.

The Iowa Lottery certainly does its best to keep a game on the market if it still has top prizes available, but older games are generally removed from sale as newer games are introduced. There’s only so much room in the lottery’s ticket dispensers and self-service kiosks, so the replacement of older games happens as a standard part of our procedures throughout the year.

So the answer to the player’s question is that the lottery’s dispensers and self-service kiosks don’t expand when new games come out.

The five new scratch games that debuted on Wednesday are shown in the image above. They range from a $1 game up to a $10 game, so there are several new play styles and prize levels available for you to play. We hope you have fun with them!

Already Sold Out? That Store Didn’t Have The Tickets I Wanted To Buy

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!

Russell Smith Wins Again … Or Did He?

It’s apparently a really good time to be Russell Smith in Iowa!

Not one but TWO Iowa men named Russell Smith have claimed big lottery prizes this month.

First up was Russell Smith of DeWitt, who claimed a $10,000 prize in the Extreme Green Progressive InstaPlay game on Aug. 1. He got his real check and an oversized, ceremonial one for fun at the Iowa Lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids.

Then yesterday, Russell Smith of Des Moines claimed a $25,000 top prize in the “Wild Bingo” scratch game. He visited lottery headquarters in Clive to get his real check and an oversized, ceremonial one.

Not the same guy, just a happy coincidence. And hey, there’s still a lot of time to go in August! Maybe even MORE Russell Smiths will win big prizes by the end of the month!

Congratulations to both Russell Smiths!

Player Question: Is A Ticket The Same As A Play? Hmmm … Maybe.

Here’s an inside-baseball question we got from a player this week that’s really interesting: Is a ticket the same thing as a play? The answer varies: Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes? Here’s why.

In a lotto game, a play is the line of numbers on a ticket that you as the player have purchased for an upcoming drawing. Let’s take Mega Millions® as an example.

In the image shown here, you see a Mega Millions ticket that has one play on it. In this instance, the ticket is technically the document (the piece of paper) on which the play is printed. But sometimes, more than one play is printed on a ticket if you buy multiple plays at a time.

For our other products – InstaPlay, scratch, and pull-tab games – each ticket is a play in the game.

I think that’s why the two terms are used interchangeably. I don’t think you’re wrong if you use one reference or the other. It’s just interesting to see the details involved for the different games!

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.

2 Big Wins On Scratch Tickets They Initially Didn’t Plan To Buy

Two big winners this month both have an unusual twist to their story: At first, neither of them planned to buy the ticket that delivered their moment of luck!

First up was Curt Smith of Des Moines, who claimed a $300,000 top prize in the “Win Big” scratch game. Curt said that after a long day of work, he went to a local store to buy a ticket in a scratch game he usually plays, but it was sold out. So, he said he decided to try Win Big.

Curt said he scratched the ticket in his car and couldn’t believe what he saw. He said he was a little shaky, so he ended up fumbling around with his phone before he finally was able to use the Iowa Lottery’s mobile app to scan the ticket and confirm that his eyes weren’t deceiving him.

After that, he said he just sat in the parking lot for about 10 minutes, in a bit of shock!

Curt, who’s 51 and works at a Des Moines tire plant, claimed his prize June 10 at lottery headquarters in Clive. He said that he and his wife, Anna, plan to use the winnings to buy a new home, pay off debt, and purchase a headstone for his mother’s gravesite.

The next business day after Curt got his prize, we met Michele Bautista of Waterloo, who claimed a $30,000 top prize in the “Bonus Crossword” scratch game. Michele said that when she asked for two tickets in the game at a local convenience store, the clerk accidentally grabbed three instead. She decided to buy them all.

She played the tickets when she got home and won her $30,000 prize on the third ticket. Michele, who’s 50 and manages a restaurant, said she was out of breath and called her son to come double-check the results. He confirmed that she really had won big!

Michele said she plans to save most of her winnings, but will use some of the money to fly her mom from California to Iowa for a visit.

Congratulations to these two unintentional winners!

2 Big Prizes In 2 Years For This Iowan!

For the second time in two years, a southwest Iowa man has won a big lottery prize.

This afternoon, Delbert Littleton of Atlantic claimed the first of eight top prizes of $100,000 available in the Power 10X scratch game. That follows his big win from June 2020, when he won a prize of $25,000 a year for life in the Lucky for Life lotto game. He chose to take the lump-sum option of $390,000 for that prize.

Delbert said that both times, he was in his kitchen when he realized he’d hit big. And both times, he had a little trouble breathing and his heart started racing.

After his 2020 win, he said that he and his wife, Jodi, danced for joy in the kitchen. This time around, he called Jodi to share the news and then had to quickly pull the phone away from his ear when she started yelling in excitement.

Delbert said he bought tickets in the Power 10X game because it was new. He ended up with three winning tickets in a row. The first was a $20 winner that he redeemed for two more tickets in the game. One of those was a $10 winner and the other won the $100,000 prize.

Power 10X is a $10 scratch game that just began sales on April 5. Its tickets feature green-and-yellow graphics of arcing electricity. Prizes in the game range from $10 up to $100,000. Delbert bought his $100,000-winning ticket at Murphy USA, 1903 E. Seventh St. in Atlantic.

Delbert said that he and Jodi followed through on their plans after his 2020 win to buy a new house and get new vehicles. With this win, he has concrete plans again: He’s tired of using a push mower on their corner lot, so he says he’ll get a riding lawnmower. The couple also plans to take a nice vacation this year, and then they’ll invest the rest of the winnings.

Delbert said that this win makes the thought of retirement a little more relaxing.

Hey, He’s Wearing THAT T-shirt!

This photo of a northwest Iowa man who claimed a prize this week made me smile when I saw the shirt he was wearing!

To commemorate the moment, we’ve had T-shirts with the message “You’re lookin’ at a WINNER!” made for those who claim larger lottery prizes in Iowa!

As you can see, John Friedrichsen of Cherokee put his T-shirt on for his photo with a ceremonial check as he claimed the $50,000 prize he won in the “X The Money” scratch game.

That $5 game just debuted on April 5 here in Iowa, and John won its first top prize! There currently are six more prizes of $50,000 that remain unclaimed in the game.   

Thank you for embracing the moment, John! We hope your shirt helps spark conversations as you remember the moment that you took home a big lottery win.

Two $100,000 Winners At The Same Store Within About A Week

Every once in a while, a run of luck happens. And this time, it hit in southwest Iowa.

Two Glenwood men who bought scratch tickets at the same local convenience store have each won a $100,000 prize.

First up was Jacob Harper of Glenwood, who claimed one of the top prizes in the “$100,000 Mega Crossword” game on March 28. And then this week, Joshua Kisler of Glenwood claimed a $100,000 prize in the “Super 20s” scratch game. They both bought their winning tickets at Casey’s, 601 S. Locust St. in Glenwood.

So for now, the Mills County community of about 5,000 gets to claim the lucky title.

Where will luck strike next? In reality, we never know. Winning tickets are randomly distributed throughout our games so that no one – not even those of us who work at the lottery – knows when or where the next big winner will hit.

But it IS fun to see the stories of our winners as they claim their prizes!

The Message: Call Me. It’s Nothing Bad!

It’s a slice-of-life moment about how a southwest Iowan told his parents he’d won a big lottery prize.

The late-night message he said he left for them went something like this: “Call me when you wake up. I’ve got some major news. It’s nothing bad.”

(Good son points for including that last part!)

Jacob Harper of Glenwood won one of the top prizes this week in the “$100,000 Mega Crossword” scratch game. He laughed as he remembered leaving the message for his parents, saying his mom is a worrier, so he wanted to use the right tone!

When his parents called him back the next morning, he told them the news about his $100,000 prize. He said his mom started screaming and his dad was laughing in the background, and there may have been some jumping around on all their parts.

Jacob said he bought his ticket at a local Casey’s store but didn’t play it until later that night after a get-together with some friends. He said that when he realized he’d completed six words on his ticket to win one of the game’s top prizes, he counted again and again in case his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Jacob says his win comes at a great time – he plans to begin work full time at a computer business that he and his friends have started.

What The Odds Mean – And What They DON’T

A question that just came our way is a reminder that sometimes, you can’t touch on a topic enough. I’m talking about the odds of winning in our games – what they mean and what they don’t.

A player reached out to us after buying two tickets in the Lucky Numbers Game Book and not winning a prize. The player noticed that the game’s overall odds of winning are 1 in 2.51 and apparently thought that meant one of their tickets was guaranteed to win. But that’s not correct.

Think of it like a deck of cards: With four suits in a deck (spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts), there’s about a 1 in 4 chance that the next card up will be in a specific suit. But once you shuffle the deck, you can go through a lot of cards in a row before you find a card in a specific suit.

It’s the same thing in our scratch games: Winning tickets are randomly distributed throughout the game so no one – not even those of us who work at the lottery – knows when or where the next big winner will hit.

We’re not joking, we’re not lying, and our odds aren’t wrong.

We made the video below to explain the odds. I hope its visuals help tell the story.

After Series Of Health Setbacks, Iowa Couple Celebrates THIS Unexpected News

After several health complications, a Des Moines couple is celebrating another kind of unexpected news: The husband won a $300,000 lottery prize!

David Martelli said that you never expect it, but yesterday it happened for them. Martelli claimed his prize at Iowa Lottery headquarters along with his wife, Amy.

David Martelli, 56, who is retired, said that the story started when he asked Amy to cash in a few tickets that had won small prizes and buy a couple more tickets. He said he specifically wanted a ticket in the “Win Big” scratch game.

David scratched off the ticket later that night. He said he noticed all the zeros in the prize amount, so he decided to surprise Amy with the news: He put his thumb over the prize amount and asked her if the numbers on the ticket matched. She said they did, and when he moved his thumb to reveal the prize amount, they both started to cry.

David and Amy are each in recovery from recent bouts with cancer and David said the situation makes them even more appreciative of this good luck.

Amy Martelli, 53, who works in health care, said the news is sinking in and becoming reality. She calls it a huge relief. 

The couple plans to use the winnings to help their immediate family and invest for their retirement.

David claimed the seventh of 11 top prizes of $300,000 in the Win Big game.

This Time, It’s A Little Different: You Can Still Enter For The $100,000 Prize

We switched things up a bit in our holiday promotion this year, and the change means you’ve got 2½ more weeks to enter for your shot at the grand prize of $100,000!

A lot of times in our promotions, entries for the grand prize drawing end at the same time as those in the last of the initial drawings. But that’s not the case with the Warehouse Dash® promotion.

The winners have been selected for the Warehouse Dash trips and the $5,000 prizes up for grabs in the promotion’s initial drawings, but the entry period for the $100,000 grand prize lasts until the morning of Jan. 4. You have until 9:59 a.m. that day to enter eligible tickets from our holiday scratch games for a chance to win that prize.

And, if you already entered tickets earlier in the drawing and those entries weren’t selected in one of the initial drawings, they also remain eligible for the grand-prize drawing for $100,000.
We’ll hold that drawing on Jan. 6.

So, congratulations to the 20 winners of $5,000 cash in the Warehouse Dash’s first four drawings and the four Warehouse Dash shopping spree winners:

     • Mike Thompson of Storm Lake
     • Shelby Nyweide of Tipton
     • Angela McClelland of Des Moines
     • Fawn Berstler of Marengo

We’re excited to see who will be selected as the $100,000 winner next month!

(We’ve heard from folks asking what it’s like to get to do the Warehouse Dash because they’ve had so much fun thinking about it. If you haven’t seen the videos of our 2012 winners, you can check them out here and here. As one of the winners says, there’s a whole lot of strategy and planning, but it all kind of goes out the window once the contestants start running!)

Warehouse Dash is a registered trademark of Hinda, Inc. Please note that sales in the "Reindeer Games" holiday scratch game ended Nov. 6, but any eligible tickets purchased in it can still be entered into the Warehouse Dash promotion.

The Number Of Prizes In That Game Went Up. What’s That Mean?

Here are the details we shared with a player who wondered if something unusual had happened with the prizes available in one of our scratch games. The game involved has been really popular – and the Iowa Lottery had to take some additional steps to ensure it could stay on the market a little longer. 

The player noticed that the overall number of prizes available in the “Colossal Crossword” game had increased, which also changed the number of claimed and unclaimed prizes in that game. The changes occurred because the Iowa Lottery ordered more tickets in the game, and that in turn increased the number of prizes available in it.

When we plan out the schedules for our games and order the tickets we’ll have on the market, we do our best to estimate the supply needed for a game to be offered for an anticipated period of time. But sometimes, sales in a particular game are stronger than we expected, which ultimately is a positive because it means players really like the game!

But that also creates the reality that the game won’t last for as long as we planned. One solution could be for the lottery to move up the release date for another game to fill the spot. But knowing that customers really like the existing game, we also can order more tickets in it. That’s what the Iowa Lottery did with Colossal Crossword. The additional supply of tickets in that game went live in late November.

We also released more tickets in the “Win Big” game earlier that month and in a few other scratch games this year, including “Super 20s” and “Wild Bingo.”

The same situation also can apply in our InstaPlay games. Back in March, the Iowa Lottery ordered more tickets in the “Cherry Twist Progressive” InstaPlay game to ensure an ongoing supply of tickets in it.

Another way to think of it is like the bulk order that a restaurant owner places for the meals they plan to serve. They estimate the number of, say, salmon dinners they anticipate customers will order, but on a particular night, the salmon may be really popular and sell out. Reality in the marketplace does not always match up with estimates in advance!                 

When we order additional tickets in one of our games, we always update the prizes available in it so you’ll have the latest details.

Thank you for playing! 

Lottery Discontinuing Sales In One Of Its Holiday Scratch Games After Player Inquiry

The Iowa Lottery is ending sales in one of its holiday scratch games after a review showed that some tickets in the game appear to have been misprinted.

The lottery takes seriously its responsibility to provide its players with accurate information and quality products. And while we have received only one report of difficulties with a ticket in the “Reindeer Games” scratch game with more than 122,000 tickets in it already distributed, we’re removing the game from sale in an abundance of caution.

A player contacted the lottery yesterday, asking about the results of a Reindeer Games ticket. The lottery’s review found that some of the numbers in the play area on the ticket appeared to have shifted to the side as the ticket was being printed. As a result, a portion of the numbers in the play area were obscured.

After receiving the player inquiry, the Iowa Lottery immediately worked with its vendor that printed the game on a larger review. The lottery chose today to remove Reindeer Games from sale because the game does not meet our expectations. The lottery has notified its retail locations that tickets in the game should be removed from sale.    

Any players who have questions about the results of a Reindeer Games ticket should contact Iowa Lottery Security at 515-725-7900 or wmaster@ialottery.com. Although Reindeer Games tickets are being removed from sale, players can continue to claim prizes in the game as normal.

As part of the lottery’s standard verification procedures before a game begins sales, a sampling of the tickets ordered in Reindeer Games were reviewed and tested by lottery staffers. However, any of our scratch games involve hundreds of thousands if not millions of tickets, and with any printed product, there can occasionally be a misprint.

The Reindeer Games scratch game debuted on Sept. 27. It is a $20 game with a holiday theme and multiple play areas on the ticket. Players try to match numbers, letters and symbols in the game to win a prize. Prizes in Reindeer Games range from $20 up to $25,000.

(As background, the lottery ordered more than 377,000 Reindeer Games tickets, and more than 122,000 of those have been distributed as of today. The lottery asked its retail locations today to immediately remove Reindeer Games tickets from sale, and lottery sales representatives will pick up any tickets in the game from retailers in the coming week.)

How Do The Odds In Our Holiday Games Compare To ‘Regular’ Games?

Now that our holiday-themed scratch games are in stores for the season, we’ve gotten a player question about the number of prizes available in them and the odds of winning.

Our holiday-themed games by design will only be on the market for a short period of time – about four months. Many of our other scratch games are sold for a year or more.

We order smaller quantities of tickets in our holiday games, which means there will be a smaller number of prizes involved. The key detail, however, 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 a perennial favorite for players, so I’ll compare the three current holiday-themed versions with their non-holiday counterparts:

            • $3 games: $30,000 Holiday Crossword and Bonus Crossword
            • $5 games: $50,000 Holiday Crossword and $50,000 Super Crossword
            • $10 games: $100,000 Holiday Crossword and $100,000 Mega Crossword.

Both of the $3 Crossword games have the same overall odds of winning: 1 in 3.52.

At the $5 price point, the $50,000 Holiday Crossword 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, the holiday version has overall odds of winning of 1 in 3.29 compared to overall odds of 1 in 3.30 in the non-holiday version.

We do our best to keep the game designs in line with each other because we want them to be fun for our players. 

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.

Player Question: Why Are Some Of Your Lottery Tickets Printed In Canada?

Here’s a Q-and-A we had on Facebook with a man who wondered where Iowa Lottery scratch tickets are printed, and specifically, why some come from outside the United States.

The man was correct in his posting: Some of the lottery tickets we sell here in Iowa are printed in Canada. Overall, there are just a handful of companies in the entire world that meet the security requirements and have the advanced printing techniques necessary to print lottery tickets.

The Iowa Lottery has contracts to print scratch games with all three of the companies that supply those tickets in the U.S. market. Two of the companies are headquartered in the United States (in Georgia and Rhode Island specifically) and one is based in Winnipeg, Canada. Each of the companies has licensed products and patented processes that only they can provide. And to offer our players the widest variety in our games, we have working relationships with all three companies.

(The Iowa Lottery’s pull-tab games, by the way, are printed right here in Iowa in Council Bluffs by American Games.)

They Thought They Won A Little, But It Turns Out They Won A LOT!

The common theme in two winners’ stories this week made me smile because they both ended up taking home so much more than they initially thought!

First in was Sherri Westbrook of Webster City, who claimed an $18,000 prize in the “Win It All” scratch game. She said when she initially uncovered a winning symbol on her ticket, she assumed she’d won a $2 prize. But then she kept scratching and saw multiple zeros and realized she’s won a lot more.

Sherri said she was so excited she woke up one of her daughters and asked her to look at the ticket to verify her win. She also checked it using the lottery‘s mobile app and finally started believing her eyes.

Next up was Roberta Gary of Waterloo. She won a $20,000 prize in the “Four Corners Crossword” scratch game, but said she initially thought she might have won $100. She said she could see that she’d uncovered several words on her ticket. As she kept playing, she raised the amount she thought she’d won to $300. Then to $2,000. But none of those were right!

Roberta said she also used the lottery app on her phone to scan her ticket, and was worried that her phone was lying to her. She said it was finally all sinking in as she claimed her prize at the lottery.

Congrats, Sherri and Roberta! Your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you – and neither was your phone! :) 

Not Even Her Twin Believed Her At First, But It’s True: She Won A $30,000 Prize

A Waterloo woman said she was in utter disbelief when she first realized she’d won a $30,000 prize on a lottery scratch ticket, and as it turns out, so was her twin sister, the first person she told.

Melanie Wagner said she produced the proof by sending her sister a picture of her winning ticket, then she signed it and hid it in a safe spot until she could get to the lottery’s Cedar Rapids office to claim her winnings.

She won the first $30,000 top prize in the $3 “Lucky 3” scratch game, which just hit shelves April 5. Melanie said she decided to buy tickets in the game because its bright pink color was just glowing in the case, calling out to her. She  stopped by a local convenience store to cash in a different ticket that had won a $10 prize when she decided to try the Lucky 3 game.

She said she thought for sure she was mistaken when she first saw the results of her ticket, so she re-read the directions and scanned the ticket using the lottery app on her phone. It turns out, she really had won!

At the time she claimed her prize, Melanie said she didn’t yet have plans for her winnings, but she laughingly was looking forward to hearing everyone else’s input!

Player Comment: I Really Liked That Game! Why Did You Stop Selling It?

Here’s a question that came our way about a scratch game that recently ended, and how and why we stop distribution of a particular game.

The player noticed that we’d stopped distributing tickets in the “3-2-Won!” scratch game. He said he always liked playing it and wished we would have kept it around.

There are a variety of factors in the Iowa Lottery’s decision to end a particular game, ranging from how long that game has been on the market, its current sales level, and whether stores want to replace it with something newer. We always discontinue sales in a particular scratch game when the last top prize in it has been claimed. We don’t want a game on the market if you don’t still have a chance at its top prize!

We have dozens of scratch games for sale at any one time, but there are only so many bins for tickets in our self-service kiosks and spots for tickets in our dispensers. That means some retail locations simply don’t have enough room for all the games that are out there, and individual locations can decide which games they want to sell.

Sometimes we have specially-themed games that only run for a short period of time, like our holiday games. Those games come off the market in January each year once the holidays are over. (And it wouldn’t make sense to sell a snowman-themed game in the summer anyway!)

In other instances, if a game has been available for some time and players show us through their overall purchases that they prefer something else, that game will be removed from shelves. In the case of 3-2-Won!, that $2 game had been on the market for two years when we ended distribution of it late last month. Overall sales in newer games simply outpaced it.  

When we discontinue one of our games, the lottery’s district sales representatives pick up any tickets in that game from the businesses that sell them so the game is removed from the retail setting.

Just know that we’ll keep coming up with fun, new games to replace those that are ending!

Player Comment: I Don’t Like Seeing A $5 Prize On That Ticket

We got an email this week from a player who didn’t like the prize amounts he and his wife had uncovered while they were playing one of our scratch games. The background involved deals with the play style in our games and how to keep them different and entertaining.

The player who reached out to us said that he and his wife were playing a ticket in a $20 scratch game and uncovered four winning numbers that each had a $5 prize associated with it, so their prize total on the ticket was $20. The player said they didn’t think a prize amount of less than $20 should be on the ticket.

We agree in part with his thinking, but also disagree.

When our team thinks through the different play styles that can be involved in our scratch games, we want them to be entertaining and for there to be a lot of different ways to win a prize. In some of our games, that means you can multiple prizes on one ticket that add up to a grand total when you’re done. (That was the case with the ticket the couple was playing.) In other games, there may be just one prize amount on a ticket.

In any of our scratch games, the minimum amount you can win on a ticket is always at least the purchase price. So, for a $3 game, the minimum prize level is $3. For a $5 game, the minimum prize level is $5, and so on.

How you arrive at the prize total on your ticket varies according to the play-style options in the particular game you’re playing. So, that means if you uncover a $5 prize on a $10 or $20 ticket, keep scratching: There are more prizes to be uncovered!

Player Question: I Got This Ticket As A Gift And Can’t Cash It

In the past few months, we’ve gotten questions from a few folks who weren’t able to cash the lottery tickets they’d been given as gifts and I’m sharing the background involved here to try to help others avoid that situation.

The latest question came from a woman who emailed us about some scratch tickets she’d gotten as a present. She played the tickets and saw that one of them indicated she’d won a prize. She took the ticket to a local store to cash it and the clerks there told her the lottery terminal couldn’t read the ticket’s results. She emailed us to ask what was going on.

We looked up the details about the game involved and it turns out the tickets she’d received were several years old. The claim period for prizes in the game had expired nearly seven years ago.

She was a good sport about it all and thanked us for our help, saying it would be just her luck to win a prize in such an old game. But we were disappointed for her, and know she was disappointed, too.

Last month, I blogged about a couple items on the Iowa Lottery website that are important when it comes to the prizes in Iowa Lottery games and the timeframes people have to claim them. I’ll highlight the lists again now because they’re important.

First up is the Unclaimed Prizes list where you can see all the prizes of more than $600 in Iowa that are still unclaimed in lotto and InstaPlay games. You can search the list in several different ways – by game, place of purchase, prize amount, date of win, and date of expiration – whichever is most important to you.

Next is the Remaining Prizes list. On that page, you can see the number of larger prizes in our scratch, pull-tab and InstaPlay games, how many of those prizes have been claimed, and the number that remain unclaimed. It’s another important reference item designed to give players insight into the games we have on the market.

For our scratch games and pull-tab games, we also have lists on our website that highlight the current games that are ending and the final date players have to claim prizes in them. There also are lists of the games that have already ended – meaning their prize-claim periods have expired – in the past three years. Click here and here to access those lists.

And if you’re giving lottery tickets to someone as a gift, please be sure they’re from current games.

Silly & Fun: ‘Dad Jokes’ Scratch Game Hits Stores This Week

A new game hitting the market this week here in Iowa has had us at the lottery laughing the entire time we were working on it. It’s just so silly and fun. We hope it makes you smile, too.

The new $1 scratch game is called “Dad Jokes.” To help build suspense, the first part of the joke is printed on the front of the ticket, but the answer is hidden under a box you’ll need to scratch off. (The answer isn’t part of the play area on the ticket where you try to win a prize by revealing three like amounts.)

The game offers prizes of up to $1,000, but we think part of the motivation to buy a ticket may be to find out the rest of the joke! There are lots of different jokes on the tickets themselves, so have fun learning them all.

Distribution of the Dad Jokes game has started today and tickets in it will be available at lottery retail locations statewide by Friday.

And yes, some of the jokes are so bad, they may make you groan. That’s by design. They are dad jokes, after all!

Player Question: What Determines The Top Prizes In Your Scratch Games?

A recent Facebook exchange about the top prizes in our scratch games was a reminder for me to highlight that issue here on the blog and share the details about how the Iowa Lottery determines those grand-prize amounts.

Some of the details are identified as we plan out our games, but a big part also is determined by population.

The planning part comes as we do our best to keep a variety of games in the marketplace to meet player tastes. Our goal is to have different game designs, colors, price points, themes and prize structures, understanding that what works for one person may not interest another at all. Variety counts!

Sometimes that means that games at the same price point will have different top prizes because players have their own preferences in the tickets they choose to play.

Take our current $20 scratch games as an example. The “Aces High” game has a top prize of $250,000, while the “Jewel Game Book” and “Super 20s” games both offer a top prize of $100,000. All three games have very different play styles and themes. And while Jewel Game Book and Super 20s both put emphasis on extended playing time with a greater number of prizes that aren’t quite as high, the $250,000 Riches game more concentration on the top prize.

Through the years, we’ve heard from some folks who want to play for bigger prizes while others prefer a better chance to win a prize at any level. We hope that by having a variety of games out there, you’ll find something that you like.

Population is the other big factor when it comes to determining the prizes that can be offered in a particular game. A lottery in a state with a larger population can design a game with bigger prizes and more of them simply because that state will have so many more people playing. A greater population base means larger sales overall, and that in turn supports higher prizes.

With a population of 3.1 million, Iowa is fairly small compared to states like California (39.5 million) or Florida (21.6 million). But we can still be creative when it comes to game planning!

Iowa First: See-Through Scratch Tickets! They're In 'The Cash Game'

A lottery first is hitting store shelves this week in Iowa: clear tickets!

Tickets in “The Cash Game” are printed on a transparent surface. The new $10 scratch game just started distribution today, so you’ll see it soon at your local lottery retailer. While tickets in the game have colorful artwork on them, their background is see-through.

Players can win prizes of up to $100,000 in the game. Nonwinning tickets in it can be entered into The Cash Game promotion that also started today and has another $200,000 in prizes on the line.

Have fun with this new look for Iowa Lottery tickets!

After Their Christmas Gift Exchange, A $10,000 Winner!

After the holidays each year, we look forward to hearing winner stories that are specific to this season: Those folks who found a big prize on a lottery ticket they received as a present!

One of those folks this time around is a northwest Iowa woman. Anne Phillips of Boyden said she and her boyfriend, Mike Kruse, bought each other lottery tickets for Christmas, and as they were scratching the tickets together, he asked her to take a closer look at one of them. He said he thought they'd won something.

Anne took that closer look and realized they’d won a $10,000 prize! Just to be sure, they scanned the ticket on the lottery’s mobile app and it confirmed they’d won big in the “$100,000 Holiday Crossword” scratch game.

Anne said that their lottery win was a bright spot in an otherwise really difficult year. She said they plan to use the winnings to pay off bills and do some home repairs. Sounds like a sensible plan!

Congratulations, Anne and Mike! And, Happy New Year!!!

You Don’t Scratch THAT Spot On “Holly Jolly Luck” Tickets

We’ve gotten questions from some players who thought their tickets in the “Holly Jolly Luck” game were defective, but it turns out they were scratching the wrong area on the ticket. Here are the details so you can avoid that.

The players said they tried to scratch off the “Winning Symbol” starburst area at the top of the ticket, and in the process, they damaged the paper or actually put a hole in it. That’s because the starburst isn’t an area to be played on the ticket.     

The starburst is just a label for the winning symbol on the ticket, which you can see immediately below the label without having to scratch anything. In the case of the example you can see here, the winning symbol on the ticket is the jolly snowman.   

The only area on the ticket that you as the player scratch is the play area at the bottom that includes “Your Symbols” and the “Scratch 2 Cash” spot. On the example ticket here, you would win a prize if any of your symbols from the play area match the jolly snowman, or if you find the “Lucky” symbol as described in the instructions.

I hope this background helps as you play Holly Jolly Luck!