ialottery blog

My Ticket Is Damaged … Can It Still Be Cashed?

A player contacted us last night with a question that comes up every once in a while about tickets that have been damaged. Specifically, can a ticket still be checked or cashed if the code on it is damaged? Many times, yes. But there are limits.

The player said the barcode on his scratch ticket that’s normally scanned to check the results had gotten stuck on some tape and torn off. He wondered if the results of the ticket could still be checked.

Often there is a way for that to happen.

Each lottery ticket has identifying numbers on it that can manually be entered into a lottery terminal to check the results of the ticket.

It’s not something you as a player can do using a self-service kiosk or self-checker in a store or the lottery's mobile app on your smartphone – the ticket code is required in those instances. But if the code can’t be read and the rest of the ticket is still in good condition, the clerk at a lottery terminal in a retail location or a staffer at one of our lottery offices can manually key in the identifying numbers from the ticket to check its results.

If the clerk at your local store doesn’t know how to do that, they can always call the Iowa Lottery’s retail hotline for help. Instructions for how to send us the ticket are here on our website.

But if a ticket is too badly damaged, not even we’ll be able to determine its results. Through the years, we’ve seen tickets that had disintegrated into tiny pieces after mistakenly being put through the wash. Others had been torn, and the player involved had only a small section of the ticket without any identifying numbers on it.

We’ll always do our best to help, but as is the case with any paper product, lottery tickets can be damaged. It’s important to keep your tickets in as good of shape as possible so you can claim any prize you’ve won!

Lottery, Country Artist Team Up To Offer Trips To Nashville Concert + Cash Prizes

Iowa Lottery players have a chance to win a trip to an exclusive Nashville concert with country recording star Luke Combs and cash prizes of up to $500,000 in a new scratch game and promotion.

The “Living Lucky with Luke Combs” scratch game hit store shelves today, offering instant prizes ranging from $10 up to $100,000. Tickets in the game feature an image of the country star in concert along with music-themed graphics of CDs and guitar picks.

If you don’t win a cash prize on your ticket, you can enter it into the Living Lucky with Luke Combs promotion that began this morning, offering 10 trips to Nashville for a private Luke Combs concert.

During the concert, a $10,000 winner will be selected from Iowa and each of the other lotteries sending players to Nashville along with one grand-prize winner of $500,000. The grand-prize winner will be announced by Luke Combs during his performance.

To enter the promotion, Iowa Lottery players must join or already be members of the lottery’s free VIP Club. The entry period continues through 9:59 a.m. on June 20. The promotion drawing will be held June 22 to determine the 10 Iowa trip winners who will go to Nashville.

The Nashville trips will take place Feb. 4-7 in 2024. Each trip package is valued at more than $20,000.

Included in each Living Lucky with Luke Combs Nashville Experience prize package will be:

• Round-trip airfare from Des Moines to Nashville.
• Three-night stay at the Sheraton Grand Nashville Downtown Hotel, standard room with daily breakfast included.
• Private concert with Luke Combs at the iconic Ryman Auditorium.
• Chance at private meet-and-greet with Combs and VIP concert seating.
• Private dinner and self-guided tour at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum.
• Private lunch and entertainment at Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint.
• Private Taste of Nashville dinner at the Skye Lounge on top of the Sheraton Grand Nashville Downtown Hotel.
• $500 spending cash.
• Custom “Living Lucky with Luke Combs” welcome gifts.
• Ground transportation in Nashville from the airport to the hotel and scheduled event activities.
• Required state and federal taxes paid on behalf of the winner.

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!

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.)

Central Iowa Ticket Wins $25,000 A Year for Life

 

Someone who bought a lottery ticket at a central Iowa convenience store won a prize of $25,000 a year for life last night in the Lucky for Life game. 

The lucky ticket was purchased at Kum & Go, 409 Nile Kinnick Dr. S. in Adel. It matched the first five numbers but missed the Lucky Ball in Wednesday's drawing to win Lucky for Life's second prize of $25,000 a year for life.

It is Iowa's 12th big winner in the game since it debuted in January 16 in our state.

The winning numbers in last night's drawing were 13-16-18-23-33 and Lucky Ball 17. Kum & Go will receive a $500 bonus from the lottery for selling the winning ticket.

Players in Lucky for Life choose five numbers from a pool of 48 for the white balls and 1 out of 18 numbers for the Lucky Ball. Players can win the game’s top prize of $1,000 a day for life by matching all six numbers selected in one of its drawings. The game’s second prize – for matching the first five numbers but missing the Lucky Ball – is $25,000 a year for life. Other prize levels in the game range from $3 up to $5,000.

Prizes at the top two levels in Lucky for Life must be claimed at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive. The lottery currently offers prize claims by appointment at its offices. Full details are available on the lottery’s website here.

Lottery Equipment & Ticket Checking On Mobile App Will Be Offline For A Time This Weekend

Update on Sunday, Sept. 26: The Iowa Lottery's new statewide gaming system went live a little before 3 p.m. today. You can now buy and check tickets in all Iowa Lottery games, and most functions are working again on the lottery's mobile app. Thank you again for your patience during this once-a-decade project! It's a huge undertaking every time, and we do our best to keep interruptions at a minimum for our players and retailers.      

A head’s up as we head into the weekend: Lottery terminals, self-service kiosks, self-checkers and ticket-checking on our mobile app will be down from 11:59 p.m. Saturday through about noon on Sunday. During the outage, players won’t be able to purchase lotto or InstaPlay tickets, check any tickets, or claim any prizes. 

The downtime will occur as the Iowa Lottery transitions to a new central gaming system, which links lottery equipment in the state in real time. That kind of system upgrade only happens about once every 10 years here in Iowa.    

Like any other electronic system, the equipment used to sell and cash lottery tickets needs to be replaced over time. The central gaming system here in Iowa has been in use since 2011 and the lottery’s contract for it expired this year. We’ve been working on the new system for about 2½ years.

At the store level, the change-over means that the previous red lottery terminals have been replaced with new black-and-white terminals. This weekend, the communications backbone that links all the lottery terminals, self-service kiosks and self-checkers in Iowa will be updated.

Any major system project involves occasional outages – think of the updates to your Internet service or mobile phone. But the end result will be the latest technology with faster processing speeds to help your lottery transactions be completed as smoothly as possible.   

We apologize in advance for our construction dust! We’ll have our new system up and running as soon as we can.

My Mother Kept This Old Lottery Ticket From Years Ago…

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!

Calhoun County Man Claims Prize Of $25,000 A Year For Life

A northwest Iowa man has claimed a prize of $25,000 a year for life that he won in a drawing late last month.

David Holder of Pomeroy is Iowa’s eighth big winner in the Lucky for Life game since its 2016 debut in the state. He bought his winning ticket at Country Stores of Rockwell City at 730 High St. in Rockwell City. His ticket matched the first five numbers but missed the Lucky Ball in the drawing on April 27 to win the game’s second prize of $25,000 a year for life.

Holder’s prize claim was received in the Iowa Lottery's secure dropbox and processed Wednesday at lottery headquarters in Clive. He chose to receive his prize in its lump-sum option of $390,000.

The winning numbers in the April 27 Lucky for Life drawing were: 1-5-9-28-35 and Lucky Ball 9. Country Stores of Rockwell City will receive a $500 bonus from the lottery for selling the winning ticket at one of its locations.

Two Different Looks At Some Of Iowa’s Latest Big Winners

As we worked on our latest map of the biggest lottery prize claims in Iowa, we decided to look at the details two different ways to dig deeper into a question we often consider: Should lottery winnings be tracked by the retail location where the ticket was purchased, or by the place where the winner lives?

We know a lot of people buy lottery tickets while they’re out running errands or on their lunch hour, so the place where they make their purchases likely isn’t where they live. It’s a real-life factor when it comes to lottery tickets, so we made two different versions of our winner map for December.

One shows prizes by the spot where the winning ticket was purchased, the other shows the same list by the city where the winner lives. As you can see, that difference comes through in the dots on the map!

Our December images wrap up our mapping project for calendar year 2019. Iowa Lottery players claimed 444 prizes of $600 or more in December, making that the highest monthly prize total for the year.

And our players claimed a grand total of 4,478 prizes of $600 or more in 2019!

As you can see from the patterns involved, something that we’ve often said about prize wins holds true: In bigger cities, more people are buying tickets and winning prizes. That’s not a matter of luck, it’s a matter of population.

Another way of putting it is that if 5 percent of lottery tickets are sold in a particular area, you'll expect to find about 5 percent of the overall winners there. Everyone has the same chance of winning, but there will be more winners in places where more tickets are sold.

There are links for both versions of the December map. Click here for the map by retailer in an interactive format, and click here for the map by winner location. 

And as always, remember that our maps only show those big prizes that have been claimed. They don’t include those prizes that have been won but aren’t claimed yet.

Only In Iowa: Powerball Players Have Chance At $1 Million Prize

Now is your chance: For the next three weeks, Powerball® players in Iowa can enter a promotion for a shot at a $1 million prize.

Any Powerball ticket purchased in Iowa from today through 8:59 a.m. on June 18 can be entered into the “Woo Hoo A Million For You Giveaway.” After the three-week entry period, we’ll hold a drawing on June 19 to determine the winner of the promotion’s $1 million prize.

Call it our version of recycling! Back in April, a $1 million Powerball prize expired in central Iowa without being claimed. Someone bought that ticket at a Casey’s store in Nevada for the Powerball drawing on April 11, 2018. But the prize was never claimed, so it expired on April 11 of this year.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a $1 million prize has ever gone unclaimed in Iowa. We repeatedly called attention to the prize to try to find the winner, and now we’re dedicating our efforts to ensuring that this prize money finds its way to a new Iowa Lottery winner.

This is a truly Iowa-made effort: Our leadership team at the Iowa Lottery thought through how we could give away this $1 million, one of the district sales representatives in our Cedar Rapids office came up with the promotion name, and only Powerball tickets purchased in Iowa can be entered into the promotion for a shot at the prize.

Please note this important detail: Simply buying a Powerball ticket during the next three weeks won’t automatically enter you into the promotion. You have to be a member of the lottery’s free VIP Club and enter your ticket in your VIP Club account to be entered. Click here for a direct link to the VIP Club homepage where you can find details about joining if you’re not already a member. 

You’ve heard us say many times that the money from lottery prizes that expire without being claimed in Iowa goes into our prize pools for future games and promotions. Well, this big unclaimed prize gives us the chance to demonstrate that!

Each eligible Powerball ticket entered will count as one entry into the promotion, regardless of the number of plays on it or how many drawings the plays may span.

The lottery retailer that sells the promotion’s $1 million-winning ticket will receive a $1,000 bonus from the lottery. That also was the case with the $1 million ticket in Nevada: Even though it was never claimed, Casey’s still got a $1,000 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling that ticket at one of its stores. Our retailers work hard every day to sell our tickets, and this is one more way we can thank them.

We know that Iowa has faced some really challenging weather-related events this year, and folks in a large swath of our state are still finding their way through those difficulties. Maybe the buzz surrounding this unclaimed prize mystery and new promotion can give us all a short break to think about something else – and then as Iowans, we’ll get back to work to ensure our state recovers. And the Iowa Lottery will keep doing its best to raise proceeds to help with vital state causes right here at home.

National Mom & Pop Business Owners Day

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.

All The Spots With Big Prizes In February

We’ve made it to the other side of a snowy-nasty February, so we’re pausing to look back at the biggest lottery prizes claimed in Iowa during the shortest month of the year (which sometimes felt like the longest this time around).

This map shows all of the lottery prizes of $600 or more that were claimed in February. You’ll find 399 dots on it, as compared to 427 on January’s map. The difference comes down to February’s shorter number of days, because both months averaged about 14 to 15 big winners per day. So even with the wintry weather, people still made it in to see us and claim their prizes!  

I said it when we looked at January’s numbers and I’ll say it again now: The patterns on this map put into perspective something that we’ve often said about prize wins: In bigger cities, more people are buying tickets and winning prizes. That’s not a matter of luck, it’s a matter of population.

Another way of putting it is that if 5 percent of lottery tickets are sold in a particular area, you expect to find about 5 percent of the overall winners there. Everyone has the same chance of winning, but there will be more winners in places where more tickets are being sold. That’s why there are more dots (prizes) on this map in areas where there are bigger populations. But there really is no telling where the next big winner will hit.

Click here for a direct link to this map in an interactive format where you can see the details involved. Each dot shows the retail location where the winning ticket was purchased, the prize won, the game involved, and the date the prize was claimed.

The dots are in different colors for the four types of lottery games here in Iowa: scratch games, lotto games, InstaPlay games and pull-tab games. Scratch tickets have always been the Iowa Lottery’s leading product and they’re represented on the map by red dots, so it makes sense that there are a lot of them!

I’ll note that this map only shows those big prizes that were claimed in January. It doesn’t include prizes that were won but haven’t been claimed yet.

Player Mail: Walk Me Through Buying The ‘Play ‘Em All’ Option

An eastern Iowa man’s email is behind this blog entry, and I’ll do my best to walk you through how to find the ‘Play ‘Em All’ feature on the lottery terminal, in case you ever run into trouble when you try to buy it.

 

The man emailed to let us know that he was having trouble buying the ‘Play ‘Em All’ option, which is available in the Powerball, Mega Millions and Lotto America games. The man said that employees in some of the stores in his area didn’t seem to know about the option or how a customer could buy it.

 

In case you’re ever in that same situation, I want you to have the inside scoop about how to find the screen for that option on the lottery terminal. We’ll keep working with our retailers to provide the latest details we can about the lottery, but sometimes the best plan is to have the information yourself.

 

If you’re not familiar with the Play ‘Em All option, it allows you to buy plays for all of the numbers for the Powerball, Mega Ball and Star Ball in the three different games involved. For example, if you buy the Play ‘Em All option in Mega Millions, you’ll get 25 plays with all of the Mega Ball numbers available (1-25). In Powerball, the Play ‘Em All option will give you 26 plays to cover all of the numbers in the Powerball pool; and in Lotto America, you’ll get 10 plays, one for each of the 10 Star Ball numbers available.

 

Here in Iowa, the clerk can find the Play 'Em All feature on the lottery terminal by touching the "Special Offers" tab in the top right-hand corner of the terminal's main screen. That tab brings up the Play ‘Em All screen, and you can then choose the game you want to buy.

 

Or, if you’re buying a ticket at a self-service kiosk here in Iowa, after you select a play option in Powerball, Mega Millions or Lotto America, in the upper right of the screen, you'll see a button that says: Play 'Em All. By touching that button, you can play that option.

 

I hope these “insider” tips can help you walk through the process – and make it easy!

Player Mail: The Ticket I Got Was For The Wrong Drawing …

A player from northeast Iowa contacted us recently after realizing the lotto ticket he bought was for a different drawing than he had expected. The man said it was a good reminder for him to double-check the details involved when he’s buying lottery tickets. He’s right, and it’s something for all of us to remember.

Think about it this way: When you buy clothes, you check that you’ve got the correct size, right? And when you buy fruit, you make sure it’s bruise-free and looks fresh, right? It’s the same thing when it comes to lottery tickets: Double-check that they’re the ones you want.

In the case of the man who emailed us, he bought a Powerball ticket he thought was for that night’s drawing. But when he got home, he realized the ticket was for a drawing 10 days later. That’s a feature we’ve added to our system that gives players more options: You can buy a ticket for the next drawing, for several drawings in a row, or you can skip a couple dates and buy for a future drawing.

So, the man had received a valid ticket, it was just for a few drawings in advance. As I said, the situation is a good reminder. Here are some other pointers:

• If it’s a lotto ticket in a game like Powerball, be sure it’s for the game you want and that it contains the numbers and plays for the drawings you selected. 

• If it’s a scratch ticket, be sure the latex covering is intact and that it covers the entire play area on the ticket, including the “Scratch 2 Cash” area. If you’re buying your scratch ticket from a vending machine, be sure that you receive one ticket and not parts of two tickets. If you receive parts of two tickets, take them to the retail counter right away to get a replacement ticket of the same price as the one you initially tried to buy.

• If it’s a pull-tab ticket, be sure that the perforations along the paper tabs are unbroken.

• If it’s an InstaPlay ticket, be sure it was printed on the spot when you asked for it. The lottery terminal plays a cash register sound whenever an InstaPlay ticket is printed, so listen for that audio when you make your purchase.

And when it comes to protecting your lottery winnings, you can have the earliest impact by signing your tickets when you buy them. That identifies the tickets – and any prizes you may win – as belonging to you!

If you ever have a concern about Iowa Lottery products, we want to hear from you. Two of the easiest ways to reach us are by calling 515-725-7900 or emailing us at wmaster@ialottery.com.

Mega Millions Jackpot Passes Half-A-Billion Mark For Tuesday's Drawing

UPDATE: The Mega Millions jackpot was increased to $522 million ($308.1 cash) for the July 24 drawing. Just a reminder to our players to please play responsibly. It only takes one ticket for the chance to win.

The Mega Millions jackpot has topped the half-billion mark for Tuesday’s drawing, making it the fifth largest in the game’s history! Here are the details you need to know:

The latest figures put the jackpot at an estimated $512 million annuity, $303.4 million cash option for Tuesday’s drawing.

Tickets in the game cost $2 per play. For an extra $1 you can add the Megaplier option to multiply your prize from 2 to 5 times (except the jackpot).

If you’re looking to buy tickets for the big drawing, keep in mind that the sales cut-off time is 8:59 p.m. the day of the drawing. Mega Millions drawings are held on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10 p.m.

You can check the lottery website, the LotteryPlus mobile app, go to your local lottery retailer or call the Winning Numbers line at 515-323-4633 to find out the winning numbers after they’ve been posted. Good luck to everyone playing. Let’s go Iowa!

Record Sales & Prizes To Players In Lottery’s Latest Year

The results are in for our lottery’s latest year: Scratch-ticket sales set a record for the fourth year in a row as the Iowa Lottery hit record total sales in fiscal year 2018, had record prizes to players and finished with annual results in its overall Top 2.
 
Our preliminary figures for the year show that the Iowa Lottery generated $87.1 million in proceeds to state causes in FY 2018, which ended June 30. That’s the second-highest proceeds total in the lottery’s 33-year history and the fifth time that our annual proceeds have topped the $80-million mark.

Lottery players won a record $227.5 million in prizes for the year. And total annual lottery sales were a record $371 million, topping the $300-million mark for the seventh year in a row.

But those numbers aren’t the only way we judge the outcome of a year, and there were a lot of other positives during the past 12 months. We got a clean audit for FY 2017 from the State Auditor’s Office, had record exposure for play responsibly messages in March as part of our work to support National Problem Gambling Awareness Month, and we won an international award for gaming compliance in the long-running jackpot investigation case. We are extremely proud to have been able to achieve success on those fronts as well.

Scratch-ticket sales in Iowa have set records each year since FY 2015, did that again this past year, reaching a grand total of $244.3 million. Powerball and Mega Millions also both saw sales increases this past year in Iowa.

I give a huge shout-out to Iowa retailers for their work in helping lottery customers and selling tickets. Local businesses across the state received $24.2 million in annual sales commissions from the lottery in FY 2018, and we’re glad to be able to make a difference for their bottom line.

Another highlight for the year was the $2.5 million that the lottery raised for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund to help our state’s veterans and their families. We’ve now has raised nearly $25 million for the Veterans Trust Fund since we began providing proceeds to that cause in 2008.

The largest prize won by an Iowa Lottery player in FY 2018 was a $4.38 million Lotto America jackpot claimed by Chuck Anderson of Davenport on May 10. Four other Iowa  tickets won prizes of $1 million during the year, including a Powerball ticket purchased in Nevada for the April 11 drawing that's still unclaimed.
 
I know there is always a lot of interest in where people buy their lottery tickets. The Top 10 retailers for lottery sales in FY 2018 were in four different communities:

We've Got An App For That -- And Here's How You Use It

Here are all the inside tips about using our mobile app to check your tickets, enter our promotions, find the nearest location that sells lottery tickets, and more! 

Yes! 'Colossal Crossword' Is Now Available Statewide

A new game that is seeing a huge response is now available at lottery retail locations statewide. "Colossal Crossword" is the first double-sided ticket we've released in nearly five years. And it's Iowa's first 8-inch Crossword game, so we're doing our best to deliver the extended playing time you've told us you like!

Colossal Crossword was delivered to retail locations across Iowa last week, so it is now available statewide. Tickets in the game have been selling quickly, and we're doing our best with re-orders to keep it in stores everywhere.

Thank you for checking out the new game!

‘Tiny Home, Big Wins!’ Promotion: Your Chance To Join The Trend!

We’ve got a chance for you to be part of the tiny-home movement.

Whatever you call it – a tiny home, a small house or a not-so-big house – there’s no doubt that this trend has taken root all across the country. We’ve had fun brainstorming ways to give our players a chance to join in, and that led to today’s debut of a promotion that offers a custom-built tiny home as the grand prize.

A $5 instant-scratch game called “Tiny Home, Big Wins!” it hitting stores today. And we’re also opening the entry period for a promotion with the same name. Tickets in the scratch game feature an image of a tiny home in the woods and offer players the chance to win prizes from $5 up to $50,000.

Players who don’t win an instant prize can use nonwinning tickets in the game to enter the promotion from today through Aug. 29. The promotion will feature seven prize drawings, or about one a month. The first six drawings will each offer 20 prizes of $500 Home Depot® gift cards.

The promotion’s grand-prize drawing on Aug. 31 will be for a $60,000 gift certificate from Wind River Tiny Homes of Chattanooga, Tenn., for a custom-built tiny home, along with two Home Depot gift cards of $500 for the winner. (State and federal withholding taxes for the grand-prize package also will be paid.)

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. You can enter tickets into the promotion through the lottery’s website or the Iowa Lottery’s LotteryPlus app available through iTunes® and Google Play®.

*Entries not selected as a winner in a previous Tiny Home, Big Wins! promotion drawing are automatically entered into the Tiny Home, Big Wins! grand prize drawing.

Iowa Lottery is not affiliated with The Home Depot®. The Home Depot is not a sponsor of this promotion. The Home Depot is a registered trademark of Home Depot Product Authority, LLC.

© 2018 Wind River Tiny Homes.

Why Has This Place Been #1 For So Long?

 

For years here in Iowa, one store has sold more lottery tickets than any other: the Hy-Vee on Wilson Avenue in Cedar Rapids. So we went there to check it out. Click on the video above to see what we learned!

Check It Out: Touch-Screen Kiosks Sell Lotto, Scratch & InstaPlay Tickets

 

We did a Facebook Live demo for a sneak peek of them on Monday, and now here’s a video with a more detailed look at the lottery’s new touch-screen kiosks that are being installed in Iowa right now. For the first time, you as the customer can use the self-service kiosks to buy lotto, scratch and InstaPlay tickets on your own. You also can check your tickets at the kiosks, just like you can by using the self-checkers we’ve installed in nearly all of our retail locations. 

Our very first touch-screen kiosk was installed yesterday at Hy-Vee, 1700 Valley West Drive in West Des Moines. You’ll see more of them in the field as they continue to be installed statewide over the next couple months. The kiosks will be in our very biggest, busiest locations to give players there an additional way to buy tickets.

Check out the video above for a quick overview. Here are a few other details about the kiosks, in case you’re wondering: You can use a playslip at the kiosk. The playslip reader is just below the bill acceptor where you put money into the machine (you can see it in some of the video shots). You can redeem lottery coupons at the kiosk and the machine also can read the barcode on any ePlayslips you’ve created using the Iowa Lottery’s app available for both Android and Apple.      
 
We hope you like the new look and features of the kiosks!

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!

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Retailers Get In On The Winner Celebrations, Too!

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.

Player Security Tip Of The Day: Don’t Forget Your Receipt!

Now that we’re moving into fall and getting back into our normal routines, it’s a good time to review some of the best ways you can arm yourself with information to help keep your lottery play fun and safe.
 
So for the next two weeks, we’re focusing on player security. Here’s your first tip of the day: Remember to get a receipt every time you have a ticket checked or cashed at a lottery terminal in Iowa. It’s an easy way to verify the results of your ticket and answer any questions you may have.

You should first determine on your own whether your ticket has won a prize. But whenever you do have a ticket checked or cashed at a lottery terminal, receipts are available.

If it’s for a scratch ticket, information at the bottom of the receipt shows the game, pack and ticket number for the ticket involved. Those same numbers are just above the barcode on the back of the ticket, so you can check the receipt against the ticket to be sure they match.

If the receipt is for a lotto ticket in a game like Powerball® or Lucky for Life®, in the upper left is a long string of numbers that includes the 14-digit serial number for your ticket. That same serial number also is in the upper left of the ticket itself. So again, you can check the receipt against the ticket to be sure they match.

(No receipts are involved for pull-tab tickets because they include “built-in receipts.” Any prize amount won on a pull-tab is already printed underneath the tabs on the ticket so the prize involved is very clear.)

A lot of retail locations automatically offer nonwinning tickets back to their customers, but if that doesn't happen, feel free to ask for your ticket back if you have any questions. Winning tickets are kept by the lottery and its retailers for record-keeping and security purposes, but nonwinning tickets can be returned to the customer.

Can I Claim A Ticket From Another State In Iowa?

Here’s a great question from a woman who contacted us on Facebook. Her name is Rhonda and she asked if she could cash a lottery ticket here in Iowa that she bought in Minnesota.

The short answer is no. She’ll need to claim that prize from the Minnesota Lottery. Why is that? It has to do with the technology that goes into running a lottery today and the fact that each state has its own separate computer system.   

The lottery terminals that sell and cash lottery tickets in Iowa retail locations are connected to a central communications system that spans the state. That lottery network is extremely complex – it provides real-time information about retail transactions involving millions of tickets.

The same is true in Minnesota and any other U.S. state that has a lottery: Each lottery has its own computerized system to track the tickets it sells. In addition, the money raised from the sale of lottery tickets in each state stays in that state to help valuable causes.

Because each state lottery tracks its tickets and $$$$$ individually, the state lottery computer systems are independent. So that means our equipment here in Iowa can’t read Minnesota tickets, and vice versa. 

Great question, Rhonda. And we hope to see you win a big prize here in Iowa someday!

Thank YOU! We Just Had A Record Year

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of lottery records being broken here in Iowa. And we have YOU to thank for being part of the fun with us!

We just announced the lottery’s preliminary results for fiscal year 2016, which ended June 30. It was a phenomenal year, with records being set for lottery sales, proceeds to state causes, prizes to players and retailer commissions.

The lottery’s annual sales topped the $300 million mark for the fifth year in a row at a total of $366.9 million. That allowed us to raise a record $88 million in proceeds for state causes. Another huge number came in prizes to players, which totaled a record $221.8 million in fiscal year 2016.

Two big factors came into play for the Iowa Lottery during the past year:

• Powerball. I think we all remember the game’s world-record jackpot of nearly $1.6 billion back in January. That giant jackpot was accompanied by huge sales in Iowa and across the country. Powerball sales hit $74.9 million for the fiscal year in Iowa.
• Instant-scratch games. Scratch tickets were the first product introduced by the Iowa Lottery and have always been one of our top-selling items. Sales of those tickets hit an annual record of $233.7 million in FY 2016, topping the previous record of nearly $212 million that had just been set the year before.

Among other highlights of the year is the $2.5 million that the lottery raised for the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund to benefit our state’s veterans and their families. With our players’ help, we’ve been able to raise nearly $20 million for the Trust Fund since the lottery began providing money to that cause back in 2008.

Local Iowa businesses also received a record $24.6 million in commissions from the lottery for selling our tickets in FY 2016. Businesses receive a commission for every lottery ticket they sell and we’re proud that the lottery can make a positive difference in the bottom line for businesses all across the state. We can’t thank our retailers enough for their hard work on behalf of the lottery.

Statistically, we know that lottery results will fluctuate from year to year. Our job is to keep it fun for players while running an operation based upon best practices. We anticipate that lottery games will continue to be a consistent, key source of proceeds for vital state causes here in Iowa.

 

Yep, We’re Getting A New Look…

In the next couple weeks, you’ll  see a new look for us here at the Iowa Lottery.

We’ve entered our fourth decade in business, so it’s perfect timing for the debut of our fourth logo. The new look maintains the shooting star that’s been central to the lottery’s identity since its start, but the logo also will now abbreviate the lottery’s name in a nod to today’s shortened communications style.

The new logo will officially debut on July 1, and we’ll phase in the new blue-and-white look as current supplies run out. Like the address for our website (www.ialottery.com), our new logo identifies us as IALottery.

We think the new look has a punch to it. It’s energetic and forward looking, but also maintains the themes that have been at the lottery’s core since it started in 1985.

The image above shows how the lottery’s logo has evolved through the years. Our original logo when we began in August 1985 was mostly green with four shooting stars on either side of the words “Iowa Lottery.” That logo was used until August 1994 when the lottery celebrated its 10th anniversary.

The second logo maintained the shooting stars, but circled them around the words “Iowa Lottery.” That version of the logo, with green letters, yellow stars and red streaks of light behind them, was used until September 2002 when it was updated. The new version of that image, with white letters in the center surrounded by graduated red, orange and red stars, has been used since that time.

The shooting star has always been central to our lottery. It’s a symbol of luck but also represents celebration. We see it as aspirational in terms of the vital difference lottery proceeds have made in our state. 

We also are debuting a new tagline. For several years, we’ve used a distinctive “Woo-hoo!” sound in our ads and as the audio that plays from lottery terminals in Iowa when a winning ticket is scanned. The new logo incorporates a “Woo Hoo for You™” tagline that, like the shooting star, references luck and excitement.

Thank you for being part of the fun with us since 1985. We hope YOU get to see the new logo on a prize check from us soon!

Yep! We’re Powerball Warriors Here In Iowa!

It’s been a few weeks now since we all were buzzing about the world-record Powerball® jackpot that reached nearly $1.6 billion! Whew! It was an intense and exciting time for us here at the lottery, our players, and of course, our retailers, who saw long lines of folks buying tickets all across the state.

At their peak, Powerball tickets in Iowa selling were at $13,800 per minute the night of the epic drawing on Jan. 13. And our 2,400 lottery retailers around the state were doing their best to keep pace with the demand.

As a way to celebrate and commemorate the momentous event, we designed a Powerball T-shirt as a way to say, “Thank you!” to our retailers for their hard work. Shown here is a cashier at a convenience store in the Des Moines area proudly wearing her new “World-Record Powerball Warrior” T-shirt. Looks like they’re a hit!

And even though things have calmed down, Saturday’s Powerball jackpot is an estimated $136 million. As we like to say, the jackpot’s always big! Got your ticket?

We’re off to a very fun start in 2016. Thank you for being part of this ride with us!