ialottery blog

Here’s Where You Can Walk Down Memory Lane With 40 Years Of Iowa Summers

There’s a new spot where you can look back at 40 years of the best of summer in Iowa.

Today, we had the honor of putting up a new installation in the Iowa State Fair Museum. Photos going back to 1985 show the many times the Iowa State Fair and Iowa Lottery have worked together through the years to amp up the fun for fairgoers.

Did you know that some of the very first lottery tickets in Iowa were sold at the Iowa State Fair? It was a rainy day for the inaugural day of Iowa Lottery sales on Aug. 22, 1985, but people still lined up to buy tickets during the kick-off celebration on the State Fairgrounds. (If you want to see 1985 fashion in Iowa, you’ll find it in that display!)

Fast forward a few years, and you’ll see that Iowa Lottery proceeds were used to renovate and save the iconic Iowa State Fair Grandstand we all know and love.

Other highlights of the display:

• A Powerball drawing was held live on the Grand Concourse at the 2006 Iowa State Fair.
• The lottery helps to celebrate our state’s veterans each year at the State Fair.
• The lottery introduced the first scratch game named for the Iowa State Fair.
• And next month, someone will have the chance to win a lottery prize of up to $5 million in a live game show on opening day of the 2024 Iowa State Fair!

The Iowa State Fair Museum is in the Heritage Village area of the State Fairgrounds, up near Pioneer Hall. The new display is on the museum’s feature wall, so it’s prominent and easy to find once you’re inside.

The display will remain up in the museum for the next year, so lots of folks will have the chance to see it as they take tours of the State Fairgrounds. And a bonus if you visit the museum during the Iowa State Fair: It’s one of the few air-conditioned buildings on the State Fairgrounds, so it’s a great spot to pause and cool off as you learn some interesting history!

Calendar Invite: Tomorrow We’ll be at Veterans Day at the Capitol

Tomorrow is an event we look forward to every year for the opportunity to interact with those who have given so much for our country.

It’s the annual Veterans Day at the Capitol event. Tomorrow morning, our state’s veterans and their families will gather at the Statehouse in Des Moines to talk with Iowa lawmakers and advocate for ideas to help support the veterans community.

The lottery will have a booth at the event to provide information about the proceeds that we raise for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund. We’ll add lottery fun to the day by giving away some lottery prize packs in contests we’ll hold at our booth in the Rotunda on the Capitol’s first floor.

Everyone during the event from 9 a.m. until about noon tomorrow is welcome to enter our contest for a chance to win a prize pack. We’ll also have lottery and veterans-themed swag at our booth to help lift people’s spirits on a cold winter day!

Since 2008, when lottery proceeds were first dedicated to the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund, the Iowa Lottery has now raised nearly $40 million for the cause. A portion of the money raised from the sale of all lottery tickets in Iowa goes to the Veterans Trust Fund to directly help veterans and their families.

It’s another way for us all to say: Thank you, veterans!

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.

The First Of Our Summer Events Are Scheduled!

With warm weather finally here in Iowa, we’re starting to schedule special events at retail locations around the state. We’ll kick things off in Des Moines and Newton this week and then it’s on to places far and wide after that!

Each spring and summer, we hold events at retail locations across the state to thank you for playing, meet you in person and give you a chance to win special prizes. It’s one more way for us to interact with our players and retailers and hear what you have to say. We’ll have Wheel Spin contests at all of our events and in the spots where there is room, we’ll also have a BIG Frogger game board that you can play.

Our events will all be listed on our promotions page, so be sure to check back there as we continue to add to the list. Our first event was from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 1 at a Quik Trip in Des Moines.

We hope to see you this summer!

©Konami Digital Entertainment

Charge Up At The State Fair & Walk With Us!

The 2016 Iowa State Fair starts tomorrow, and you’ll be able to charge up on us at the Fairgrounds – and get in a walk, too!

The Iowa Lottery is sponsoring Powerball® Power Stations at the iHeart Studios building at the Fairgrounds. (The building is just west of the Varied Industries Building along the Grand Concourse.) There will be multiple charging stations for mobile devices there, so stop by and power up, courtesy of Powerball and the Iowa Lottery.  

And each weekday at the Fair, you’ll be able to join us in a half-hour walk as part of the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative! Tomorrow – the Fair’s opening day – we’ll lead a 30-minute walk that highlights the history of the Fairgrounds going all the way back to 1886. That Historical Walking Tour starts at 8:15 a.m. outside the Administration Building on the Grand Concourse. The first 50 people participating in tomorrow’s walk will get a lottery tote bag and T-shirt! Some of those you can expect to see on the Opening Day walk include WHO Radio morning host Van Harden, Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds, all 99 State Fair queen candidates, members of the State Fair Board, and Fairfield, the State Fair mascot! Tomorrow’s walk will conclude at the Opening Ceremonies for the Fair.

On all other weekdays at the Fair, our 30-minute morning walk will start at 9:15 a.m. outside the iHeart Studios. Van Harden will join us on each of those walks as we start the day off on the right foot!

(And now for the fine print: The walk is open to all fairgoers. You must have a ticket to enter the Fairgrounds.)       

Enjoy your time at the State Fair!

Lucky Clovers Have Sprouted Here At The Lottery

 

 

When you drive up to lottery headquarters, you’ll notice some shiny new clovers on the grounds around the building! There are 15 of them in all, and they’re part of the Art in State Buildings project we’ve been working on for about a year.

The metal sculptures were designed by Des Moines artists TJ Moberg and Dennis Reynolds. As soon as we saw their idea, we thought: lottery luck!

The clovers range in size from 12 inches up to 5 feet in diameter. Moberg and Reynolds selected a variety of materials and finishes that bring additional depth of meaning to the project.

We think the end result is an installation that tells not only the lottery’s story, but that of Iowa as well.

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!

We’ll Be Opening-Day Sponsor At 2014 Iowa State Fair!

State Fair time will be here before you know it, and I’m excited to announce that the Iowa Lottery will be the opening-day sponsor of this year’s Fair! And even before that, we’ll have some great contests with radio stations around the state to give away prize packages to the Lady Antebellum concert Aug. 16 at the State Fair Grandstand. Let’s get this party started!

In the weeks leading up to the Fair, the lottery will have contests on radio stations across the state to give away Lady Antebellum concert prize packages. Each prize pack will include two concert tickets to the Aug. 16 Grandstand show, two admission tickets to the Fair, a parking pass, $30 in Fair food tickets, and a sweet lottery swag bag! A list of participating radio stations is available on our promotions page.

Then on Aug. 7, the Fair’s opening day, lottery staff will be at four of the main admission gates that morning to hand out coupons for a free play in our All or Nothing™ lotto game. (The fine print: Coupon giveaways are scheduled for 5-9 a.m. Coupons can only be given to fair-goers at least 21 years old, one coupon per person, while supplies last.) There also will be discounted admission at the gates from 5 a.m. to noon that day, so visit www.iowastatefair.org for more details.

And we’ll have fun that morning with WHO Radio’s Van & Bonnie as they broadcast live from Expo Hill on the Fairgrounds. While their show is on the air from 5 to 9 a.m. that day, fair-goers can sign up for a chance to win one of 10 prizes of $100 cash or a Lady Antebellum concert prize pack from the lottery.

It will be a busy morning!

One thing for you to note: The lottery will not have a booth in the Varied Industries Building during this year’s State Fair. With the upcoming move to our new headquarters location, we need to dedicate additional resources to that project, so we couldn’t do a booth this time around. But we’re excited to see everyone on the Fair’s opening day and know we’ll have a good time that morning!

Which are the gates where we’ll be giving out coupons? Here’s the list: Gate 4, at the campgrounds on the Fairgrounds’ east side; Gate 8, at Rock Island Avenue on the south side of the Fairgrounds; Gate 11, at the Grand Concourse on the west side of the Fairgrounds; and Gate 15, at the north parking lot. Lottery signs will mark the gates where coupons will be given away, so look for one of the signs to ensure you’re entering a gate where you can receive a coupon for a free play.

Destination Iowa: Live and In-Person!

We’re heading to the “Bass Pro Shops®” stores in Altoona and Council Bluffs next weekend, so join us there to get in on some fun!   

It’s all tied to the “Destination Iowa” promotion we kicked off March 6, which offers $300 gift cards to each of these Iowa vacation spots: Honey Creek Resort State Park on Rathbun Lake in south-central Iowa; Café Dodici and Dodici Night Suite in Washington; the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Historic Park Inn Hotel in Mason City; King’s Pointe Waterpark Resort in Storm Lake; and Harrah’s Council Bluffs Casino and Hotel.

The game that will get you into the promotion is the new $5 “Bass Pro Shops®” instant-scratch game that also started sales March 6. And that’s where our special events next weekend come into play.

We’ll be at the Bass Pro Shops stores in Altoona and Council Bluffs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. We’ll have an awesome game you can play to win a merchandise prize, and can give you all the details about Destination Iowa!

Anyone 21 and older who buys $10 in Bass Pro Shops scratch tickets at our events will be able to play a “Bass Bucket” game. After purchasing your tickets, you’ll get a voucher to present to the person running the game and have three chances to cast a line into the buckets. Every fisher participant wins a merchandise prize, whether you make it in a bucket or not!

So come see us! We’ll be inside the main entrance at the Altoona store and in the boating area near the elevators at the Council Bluffs store. And if you want to check out the Destination Iowa promotion beforehand, visit our website for details.