ialottery blog

Holiday Promo Starts Today! 61 Cash Prizes Totaling $125,000 On The Line

Psssst! This blog entry will get you thinking about winning cash for the holidays. :)

A total of 61 cash prizes, including a grand prize of $20,000, will be up for grabs over the next few months in our “Fa la la Loot” holiday promotion that started at 9 a.m. today.

The promotion will have seven drawings and the value of the prizes involved will increase each time. We’ll kick things off with 10 prizes of $500 on the line in the promotion’s drawing on Oct. 24, and that will ratchet up to 10 prizes of $3,000 in the drawing on Jan. 9. A $20,000 grand prize also will be awarded Jan. 9 from any entries not selected in an earlier drawing.

Our players have always told us that cash is king, so we’re giving you lots of chances to win just that during this holiday season!

You can enter the promotion using nonwinning tickets from the 11 holiday-themed scratch games we’ll have available this year. Nine of the games hit the market today and two more will debut Nov. 5.

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. And remember that you can enter through the VIP Club website or by scanning your tickets on our app! 

Here’s the drawing schedule and the prizes that will be awarded:

Iowa City Man Says He Now Knows That People DO Win Lottery Prizes

Jim Rogers admits he used to wonder if anyone really won the prizes offered in lottery promotions, but now he knows they do. Rogers, of Iowa City, claimed the grand prize today in the Iowa Lottery’s “Tiny Home, Big Wins!” promotion. Click on the video above to see the highlights of his fun day.

Iowa City Man Wins Grand Prize In ‘Tiny Home, Big Wins’ Promotion

Jim Rogers of Iowa City had a PRICELESS reaction when we called this morning to let him know he’s the grand-prize winner in the “Tiny Home, Big Wins!” promotion. Check out the video above to see what Jim had to say about the good news. :)

And, demonstrating that he’s a savvy guy, Jim then called us back to double-check that we really do work at the Iowa Lottery and he really had won a big prize. And it’s true!  

Jim’s winning entry beat the odds to claim the grand prize out of nearly 116,000 total entries that players made in the promotion. As the grand-prize winner, Jim will get a $60,000 gift certificate from Wind River Tiny Homes in Chattanooga, Tenn., for a custom-built tiny home, along with two Home Depot gift cards of $500. (State and federal withholding taxes for the grand-prize package also will be paid.)

In addition to Jim’s grand prize, other Iowa Lottery players won 120 Home Depot® gift cards of $500 each in the promotion’s earlier drawings this year. CONGRATS to all our winners, and thank you for being part of the fun!

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.

Our Power Cruise™ Winners Are From … All These Places!

With the results in from the final drawing in our Power Cruise™ promotion, we decided to take a look at all the spots in Iowa where this year’s trip winners live!
 
So here’s a map showing the communities that had cruise winners in the promotion. (And for those of you doing a careful count, the image is correct with only 24 pins. Iowa had 28 Power Cruise winners, but there were multiple winners in a couple communities.) 

Click here for the full list of winners. Thank you to everyone who entered and congrats to those folks who are now planning their 2019 Caribbean cruise vacations! 

POWER CRUISE™ is a trademark of Alchemy 3, LLC. Used under license. │Royal Caribbean International logo is a registered trademark of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and is used with permission. ©2018 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.® │ Powerball® and Power Play® are federally registered trademarks and are used with permission of the Multi-State Lottery Association. All rights reserved.

 

 

There’s No Surprise Like A Lotto Surprise!

Who doesn't love a good surprise? Starting Sunday, April 29, through Saturday, May 26, we’re giving away free plays to random Powerball, Mega Millions, Lucky for Life and Lotto America players - there’s a different bonus offer each week!

Week 1 (April 29 - May 5):
Chance for free Lotto America play(s) when you buy Powerball.

Week 2 (May 6 - May 12):
Chance for free Lotto America play(s) when you buy Mega Millions.

Week 3 (May 13 - May 19):
Chance for free Lotto America play(s) when you buy Lucky for Life.

Week 4 (May 20 - May 26):
Chance for free Powerball play(s) when you buy Lotto America.

For details on how to make a qualifying purchase and more information, visit our website at ialottery.com starting Sunday.

Player Mail: Questions About Power Cruise

Now that folks have been entering tickets in the “Power Cruise™” promotion for about a week, we’re seeing some repeat questions about the process and have done our best to answer them on the Frequently Asked Questions page we put together for the promotion.

We try in advance to think of the questions people may have about a particular game or promotion, and in this case, we listed a lot of those Q-and-As on our website when the promotion started last week. But just when we think we’ve thought of all the possible details, our players surprise us and ask about something that wasn’t yet on the list!

So, if you have a question about the promotion, please check out the FAQs for it. And if we haven’t provided the answer there that you’re seeking, let us know. We’ll get the answer for you and then we’ll add it to the website, too!

POWER CRUISE™ is a trademark of Alchemy 3, LLC. Used under license. │Royal Caribbean International logo is a registered trademark of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and is used with permission. ©2018 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.® │ Powerball® and Power Play® are federally registered trademarks and are used with permission of the Multi-State Lottery Association. All rights reserved.

It’s Back! Powerball Promotion Offers Chance To Win Caribbean Vacation

After the huge response last year, we’re bringing back the Powerball® promotion that gives you the chance to win a Caribbean cruise vacation package.

The “Power Cruise™” promotion begins tomorrow and will have 28 cruise packages on the line for lottery players in Iowa – three more than in 2017’s initial version.

From tomorrow through June 6 here in Iowa, when you buy a Powerball ticket, you’ll automatically get a code you can use to enter the promotion on the lottery’s VIP Club website or the Power Cruise Collect ‘N Win app available through the App Store and Google Play™. (It’s the same app as last year, so if you still have the app downloaded you will be receiving an email to update the app.) More than 20 U.S. lotteries are participating in this promotion.

The Caribbean cruise on the Royal Caribbean® “Majesty of the Seas®” ship will depart from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in January 2019 to give trip winners plenty of time to plan for their vacations.

Two of the cruise packages available to Iowa players will be for Balcony staterooms on the ship; 16 will be for Ocean View staterooms; and 10 will be for Interior staterooms. Each vacation package for two will include airfare to Florida; a one-night hotel stay in Tampa the night before the cruise departs; ground transportation from the airport to the hotel and the hotel to the port; a stateroom with all amenities for a five-night cruise to the Caribbean departing Jan. 19, 2019, to Nassau, Bahamas, and the exclusive island of CocoCay®; a $250 credit on the ship; and ground transfer from the port to the airport when the cruise has concluded. The cruise packages are each valued at more than $7,100.

Once the cruise begins, the fun will really get going for those on the ship. Each registered trip winner on the ship will have a chance at $250,000 in onboard cash prizes, including two prizes of $50,000 in the grand-prize event.

Those on the cruise liner also will be treated to an exclusive concert by singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins.

To enter, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. You’ll need to key in the entry code from a qualifying Powerball ticket either via the lottery’s VIP Club website or the Power Cruise Collect ‘N Win app. Each eligible Powerball ticket entered in the promotion will give the player entry symbols, with the goal of collecting enough symbols to complete a game card with six squares. Each card that a player completes will count as one entry in the promotion. The deadline to enter is by 11:59 p.m. June 6.

We’ll hold three promotional prize drawings beginning May 3. Here is the schedule and the number of prizes that will be awarded in each drawing:

Entry Period                                         Cruise Packages           Drawing Date
April 14 – May 2                                            8                                   May 3
April 14  – May 16                                         9                                   May 17
April 14 – June 6                                           11                                 June 7

Rules and complete details are available on our website at www.ialottery.com and winners’ information also will be posted there.

POWER CRUISE™ is a trademark of Alchemy 3, LLC. Used under license. │Royal Caribbean International logo is a registered trademark of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and is used with permission. ©2018 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.® │ Powerball® and Power Play® are federally registered trademarks and are used with permission of the Multi-State Lottery Association. All rights reserved.

 

You Can Tour A Custom Tiny Home This Weekend In Des Moines!

Just before the snow started to fall yesterday, the folks from Wind River Tiny Homes® arrived in Iowa with a custom-built tiny home that will be on display this weekend during the Des Moines Home + Garden Show. Being at the show can definitely get us all looking forward to spring!
 
We got a sneak peek at the tiny home yesterday at the Iowa Events Center and have included some pics of it here. Each home that Wind River constructs is custom built, and the home on display this weekend will give you a good idea of what they could build for you if you’re the grand-prize winner of a $60,000 certificate in our “Tiny Home, Big Wins!” promotion. (The tiny home at the show this weekend is for sale and the folks from Wind River can talk with you about that if you want to learn more.)

The lottery will have a booth beside the tiny home this weekend where we’ll be selling tickets in our “Tiny Home, Big Wins!” scratch game. You can spin the prize wheel at our booth for merchandise prizes with a minimum purchase of $10 and can get a T-shirt with a $20 minimum purchase. And remember, if you don’t win an instant prize on your Tiny Home scratch ticket, you can use it as an entry into the promotion for a chance to win your own tiny home.

The Home Depot® is doing landscaping around the tiny home on display and is tricking it out with home decorating that will get your ideas flowing. They’ll be doing their own give-aways throughout the show as well.  

See you this Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Des Moines Home + Garden Show!  

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

 

‘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.

Where Did My Favorite Scratch Game Go?

We’ve heard from some players recently asking where they can find their favorite scratch game.

You may have noticed that nine new holiday scratch games went on sale Oct. 2 and two more will go on sale Nov. 6. Nonwinning tickets in all 11 holiday scratch games are eligible to win cash prizes in our Secret Santa Play It Again^® promotion.

Because of this, we ask that all of our retailers across the state sell at least some of our holiday scratch games. And since many retailers have limited space to display lottery games, some scratch games must be removed to make room for the new ones. Therefore, we’ve pulled some of our other games for the time being.

Don’t worry, though, we haven’t gotten rid of those other games for good. As you can imagine, the holiday games only run for a short time, so our other games, and their remaining prizes, will be coming back in early January!

Just In Time For Spring: Frogger!

​

 With the return of spring, lots of creatures are hopping around outside … and on the tickets in one of our new scratch games! The “Frogger” game begins sales today in Iowa, bringing with it a fun throw-back look at the early days of video gaming!

This new $5 scratch game comes complete with frogs; cars and trucks the frogs need to avoid as they cross the road; and turtles, alligators and logs the frogs can try to ride across the river to reach the finish line and win a prize. And hold onto your tickets because starting next week, you can use nonwinning Frogger tickets to enter a Play It Again® promotion with cash and merchandise as prizes. 

We filmed this how-to-play video so you can learn more about the new Frogger game. So, get hoppin’ and watch it!

©Konami Digital Entertainment

 

Our Power Cruise™ Winners Are From … These Places!

With the results officially recorded from the final drawing in our Power Cruise™ promotion, we decided to take a look back at all the locations where Iowa’s trip winners live!

So here’s a map showing the communities that saw cruise winners in the promotion. And for those of you doing a careful count, the image is correct with only 21 pins. Iowa had 25 Power Cruise winners, but there were multiple winners in a couple communities. 

Click here for the full list of winners. Thank you to everyone who entered and congrats to those folks who are now planning their 2018 Caribbean cruise vacations! 

Player Mail: FAQs About Power Cruise

We’ve gotten several great questions this week from players about our “Power Cruise™” promotion, so we’ve compiled them here in an overall Q-and-A list so you’ll have the details, too. 

Are all Powerball^® tickets eligible? Yes, both winning and nonwinning Powerball tickets purchased in Iowa between Feb. 5 and March 29 are eligible for this promotion.

Do I need to keep my Powerball ticket after I’ve entered it in the promotion? You should hold on to your Powerball ticket until the drawing for which it’s eligible occurs because you’ll need your ticket to claim any cash prize you may win in that drawing. But once the drawing has passed and you’ve successfully entered your ticket into the Power Cruise promotion, then you no longer need to keep your ticket. Should one of your entries be selected as the winner of a cruise package, you won’t need to present the tickets you entered in the promotion to claim your prize.

If my entry isn’t selected as a winner in the first drawing, do my entries carry over to the other drawings? Yes. Entries not selected in drawings 1-5 will roll to the next eligible drawing. Entries not selected in the sixth and final drawing will not be eligible for any prize. You can see the drawing schedule on our website.

Do you have to be a VIP Club member to participate? Yes, you must be a member of our free VIP Club to enter the promotion using Powerball tickets that you’ve purchased in Iowa. If you’re not already a member, we recommend that you register for an account first.

I’m a VIP Club member, but every time I try to enter my Powerball ticket into the Power Cruise promotion, I receive this error message: “Application has encountered an error. Please contact support.” Why is that occurring and how can I fix it?  Please double-check your VIP Club account to make sure that you have a phone number listed in your profile. We need a phone number to be able to contact you should you win a cruise package. To check for your phone listing, log in to your VIP Club account on our website and then click on the “Manage Profile” link on the left-hand side of the screen. Once there you can add a phone number and update any other contact information as needed.

Is the Collect ‘N Win mobile app available for both Apple and Android devices? Of course! You can find the Collect ‘N Win app in both iTunes® and Google PlayTM. And you can download it here. Don’t have a smartphone? You also can enter eligible Powerball tickets through our VIP Club website, so you don’t have to download the app or have a smartsphone to scan them.

Is there a minimum purchase required? No. Any Powerball ticket (winning or nonwinning) purchased between Feb. 5 and March 29 is eligible. And remember that each ticket can only be entered once – you will not receive more Collect ‘N Win symbols if your ticket has plays for more than one Powerball drawing.

We hope this helps answer your questions! But if you didn’t find the details you were looking for here, let us know by commenting on this post or by sending an email to Wmaster@ialottery.com.

 

Powerball Promotion Offers Players Chance To Win Caribbean Vacation

A new Powerball® promotion that starts Sunday gives lottery players in Iowa the chance to win one of 25 Caribbean cruise vacation packages.
 
It’s called the “Power Cruise™” promotion and it runs from Sunday through March 29 here in Iowa. If you make a Powerball purchase during that time, you’ll automatically get a code you can use to enter the promotion via the lottery’s VIP Club website or the Power Cruise Collect ‘N Win app available through iTunes® and Google Play®.

Iowa is one of 24 U.S. lotteries participating in this promotion, with 25 cruise packages available to players who enter with Powerball tickets they purchase in Iowa.

The Caribbean cruise on the Royal Caribbean® “Brilliance of the Seas®” ship will depart from Tampa, Fla., in January 2018 to give trip winners plenty of time to plan for their vacations.

Twelve of the cruise packages available to Iowa players will be for Balcony staterooms on the ship; seven will be for Ocean View staterooms; and six will be for Interior staterooms. Each vacation package for two will include airfare to Florida; a one-night hotel stay in Tampa the night before the cruise departs; ground transportation from the airport to the hotel and the hotel to the port; a stateroom with all amenities for a five-night cruise to the Caribbean departing Jan. 15, 2018, with two ports of call; a $250 credit on the ship; primary gratuities paid for the room attendant and dining-room staff on the ship; and ground transfer from the port to the airport when the cruise has concluded. The cruise packages are each valued at more than $4,800.

Once the cruise begins, the fun will really get going for those on the ship. There will be 200 pre-paid gift cards of $500 each awarded to registered trip winners on the ship. And on the final evening of the cruise, a $50,000 top prize will be awarded to one of the registered trip winners onboard.

Those on the cruise liner also will be treated to exclusive concerts by the rock group the Goo Goo Dolls; rap artist Flo Rida and pop singer Macy Kate.

To enter, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. You’ll need to key in the entry code from a qualifying
Powerball ticket either via the lottery’s VIP Club website or the Power Cruise Collect ‘N Win app. Each eligible Powerball ticket entered in the promotion will give the player entry symbols, with the goal of collecting enough symbols to complete a game card with six squares. Each card that a player completes will count as one entry in the promotion. The deadline to enter is by 11:59 p.m. March 29.

We’ll hold six weekly promotional prize drawings beginning Feb. 22. Here is the schedule and the number of prizes that will be awarded:

Entry Period                                         Cruise Packages           Drawing Date
Feb. 5 – Feb. 20                                         4                                     Feb. 22
Feb. 5 – Feb. 27                                         4                                     March 1
Feb. 5 – March 6                                        4                                     March 8
Feb. 5 – March 13                                      4                                     March 15
Feb. 5 – March 20                                      4                                     March 22
Feb. 5 – March 29                                      5                                     March 31

Rules and complete details will be available on our website at www.ialottery.com and winners’ information also will be posted there.

POWER CRUISE™ is a trademark of Alchemy 3, LLC. Used under license. │Royal Caribbean International logo is a registered trademark of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and is used with permission. ©2017 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.® │ Powerball® and Power Play® are federally registered trademarks and are used with permission of the Multi-State Lottery Association. All rights reserved.

 

What’s In It For Me If I Join The Free VIP Club?

Oh the perks our players enjoy by being a VIP Club member. To keep it short and sweet check out the benefits you’ll receive:

• Free monthly lotto play coupon – the next coupon goes out Nov. 1
• Latest lottery news and winners
• Exclusive Play It Again^® promotions where you can enter eligible tickets for chances to win cash and prizes
• Random pop-up contests where you could win things like scratch tickets, concert tickets and more
• Free seasonal lottery envelopes that you can print at home and stuff with lottery tickets to make someone’s day
• Personalize your desktop, laptop or mobile device with free lottery-themed wallpapers you can download
• Sneak peeks of upcoming promotions and games

Our VIP Club members enjoy exclusive content and chances to win, and anyone who is at least 21 can join for free. Just remember when you register to check “Yes” to receiving email communications from us. Otherwise you’ll miss out on some of the exclusive perks listed above that are sent directly to your inbox. We promise not to overload your inbox with emails. To help make sure you get our emails, add wmaster@ialottery.com to your email provider’s Safe Senders list. And now that you know all the benefits you can enjoy, be sure to sign yourself up today.

Player Mail: We Have Questions About The Holiday Promotion …

Our “Jingle Bills” holiday promotion has been up and running for about a week now, so it’s a good time to recap answers to some of the questions we’re seeing about it.

Each ticket entered in the promotion is good for one entry, it doesn’t matter the price of the ticket. And each entry is good only for the drawing in which it was entered as well as the $20,000 grand-prize drawing at the end if it’s not selected before then. You’ll need to enter an eligible nonwinning ticket during each entry period to have a chance of winning a prize in the current drawing.  

But entries don’t carry over from one of the initial drawings to the next. At the close of each two-week entry period, the entry cache is wiped clean and the count starts over at zero for the next drawing cycle.

A few folks have said they had trouble getting their tickets entered in the promotion. They said they keyed in their ticket numbers, but didn’t get a message saying that an entry had been made, and the ticket was not in their history of entries. In those instances, the players needed to make sure they clicked on the “submit” icon with their mouse rather than hitting the “enter” button on their keyboard. Just a few people have had that situation, and the entry process we’ve described worked for all of them.

We also got a question about the number of top prizes in our holiday-themed games. A player noticed that holiday games don’t have as many top prizes available as our other games and wondered why. 

It’s because our holiday-themed games by design will only be on the market for a short period of time while many of our other 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 point, however, is that the odds of winning in our holiday-themed games are in line with those in our other games, and that’s what matters when it comes to the chance of winning a prize.

And with “Crossword” and “Bingo” being perennial favorites with our scratch-ticket players, we’ve gotten questions about when the non-holiday versions of those games will be back. Not to worry! They’ll return in January when the holiday promotion ends.

Holiday Promo Starts Today! 65 Cash Prizes Will Be Given Away

A total of 65 cash prizes will be up for grabs over the next few months in our “Jingle Bills” holiday promotion that started at noon today.

The promotion will have eight drawings, with the number of prizes increasing over time. There will be a $1,000 prize on the line in the drawing on Oct. 26 and that will ratchet up to 18 prizes of $1,000 in the drawing on Jan. 18. A $20,000 grand prize also will be awarded Jan. 18, with any entries not selected in an earlier drawing eligible for the grand prize.

You’ve told us that cash is your favorite prize, so we’re giving you lots of chances to win just that all the way through the holiday season!

You can enter the promotion using nonwinning tickets from the 11 holiday-themed instant-scratch games we’ll have available this year. Nine of the games hit the market Oct. 3 and two more will start sales on Oct. 31.

The promotion gives you three ways to win with each holiday-themed ticket that you buy: You could win an instant prize playing your scratch ticket; have a chance at a $1,000 prize if you enter one of the initial drawings; and have a chance at the $20,000 grand prize if your entry isn’t selected before then.

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. Here’s the drawing schedule and the number of prizes that will be awarded:

Player Mail: Help! I Can’t Get The ‘Power For Life’ Deal!

We’ve gotten emails and heard from some folks on social media who say they’re having difficulty buying tickets at a discount in our “Power for Life” promotion that started last week. Here’s the inside scoop to help out, should you encounter that same situation.
 
We’ve provided information about the promotion to our retailers and our folks in the field who visit our retail locations each week will continue to provide them with updates and reminders. These are the details we’re sharing with them:

Retailers print plays in the promotion by using the Power for Life icon on the game screens for Powerball® and Lucky for Life® on the lottery terminal. The image above shows where to find the Power for Life icon along the right side of the screen.

By asking for the Power for Life bundle, you’ll get a $2 discount on plays in Powerball and Lucky for Life. They’re easy-pick plays for the next two drawings – a Powerball with Power Play ticket and a Lucky for Life ticket. That normally would be a $10 purchase but it costs just $8 during the promotion that runs through the end of this month. (This promotion is available at any retail location in Iowa where lottery tickets are sold.)  

When the Power for Life icon is pressed on the screen, a confirmation window will pop up. The store clerk should choose “yes” to sell the promotional bundle. An audio recording then plays from the lottery terminal. You’ll hear, “Woo-hoo! It’s your lucky day!” and two easy-pick tickets, one in each game for the next two consecutive drawings, will be printed.

Hope this helps!

 

The Cash Prize Winners In Our “Ghostbusters™” Promotion Are …

We just held drawings for the cash prizes available in our big summer “Ghostsbusters™” promotion, and congrats go out to 11 happy winners today!

Ten prizes of $1,000 and a grand prize of $5,000 cash were on the line in today’s drawings, and the winners were from all across the state. Click here to see today’s winners as well as the winners from the promotion’s two earlier drawings in June and July.

Thanks for being part of the Ghostbusters fun this summer. Our next Play It Again® promotion will begin this fall, so be on the lookout for those details!

TM & © 2016 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
          
© 2016 Sony Electronics. All Rights Reserved. 
Sony products, marks and logos are registered trademarks of Sony Electronics Inc. and are used with permission.

 

Today’s 10 Winners In Our Ghostbusters™ Promotion Are …

We just held the second drawing in our big summer “Ghostsbusters™” promotion, and we now know the 10 players who have each won a home theater prize package!
 
Today’s winners are from all across the state. They’ve each won a home theater package, valued at nearly $1,500. It includes a Sony® 40-inch HDTV with Wi-Fi®, Sony® sound bar with wireless subwoofer, Sony® Blu-ray Disc™ player, $150 movie gift card, $150 spending cash for food and beverages, and Ghostbusters merchandise.

And remember, it’s not over yet! We’re now into the entry period for the third drawing in our promotion. That drawing and grand-prize drawing will both be held on Aug. 16. The third drawing will feature 10 prizes of $1,000 and the final drawing will be for one prize of $5,000. (All entries made in the promotion that don’t win another prize will be eligible for a chance at the $5,000 grand prize.)
 
Thanks for being part of the Ghostbusters fun this summer, and good luck in the promotion!

TM & © 2016 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
          
© 2016 Sony Electronics. All Rights Reserved. 
Sony products, marks and logos are registered trademarks of Sony Electronics Inc. and are used with permission.

 

The First 10 Winners In Our “Ghostbusters™” Promotion Are …

We just held the first drawing in our big summer “Ghostbusters™” promotion, and we now know the 10 players who will be heading to Comic Con Chicago! 
Today’s winners are from all across the state. They’ve each won a VIP Experience package valued at $1,700 to the Wizard World Comic Con convention Aug. 18-21 in Chicago. Each package includes a three-night stay for two at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago, two VIP Experience tickets to the four-day Comic Con event, $500 spending cash and Ghostbusters merchandise.

And the summer fun isn’t over yet! We’re now into the entry period for the second drawing in our promotion, with 10 home theater prize packages on the line this time around. We’ll hold the drawing for those prizes on July 14. Each home theater package, valued, at nearly $1,500, will include a Sony® 40-inch HDTV with Wi-Fi®, Sony® sound bar with wireless subwoofer, Sony® Blu-ray Disc™ player, $150 movie gift card, $150 spending cash for food and beverages, and Ghostbusters merchandise.

The promotion’s third drawing and grand-prize drawing will both be held on Aug. 16. The third drawing will feature 10 prizes of $1,000 and the final drawing will be for one prize of $5,000. (All entries made in the promotion that don’t win another prize will be eligible for a chance at the $5,000 grand prize.)
 
Good luck, and thank you for playing!

TM & © 2016 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
          
© 2016 Sony Electronics. All Rights Reserved. 
Sony products, marks and logos are registered trademarks of Sony Electronics Inc. and are used with permission.

 

Yep! We Showed Up In Costume!

Now THIS was fun. Check out who we were dressed as during our big announcement this afternoon! And good luck in our new game and promotion.

 

  

Something Strange (And Awesome) In the Neighborhood

If you haven’t seen it at your local lottery retailer yet, here’s a fun game update: A new “Ghostbusters™”-themed scratch game has hit stores in Iowa. And today we’re launching a promotion based around the game that will offer prizes including tickets to Wizard World® Comic Con in Chicago, home theater packages and cash.
 
The new game and promotion are part of the celebration leading up to the Ghostbusters movie that opens in theaters July 15.

Our $5 Ghostbusters scratch game debuted May 2. Its tickets feature iconic images from the movie, including Slimer the ghost, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and silhouettes of a Ghostbusters team member wearing a proton pack. The game offers prizes from $5 up to $50,000.

And today at noon, our promotion began that you can enter using nonwinning tickets in the Ghostbusters game. We’ll have three drawing dates during the 90-day Play It Again® promotion, with each drawing featuring different prizes.
 
The first drawing on June 14 will feature 10 prize packages to the Wizard World Comic Con convention Aug. 18-21 in Chicago. Each package, valued at $1,700, will include a three-night stay for two at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago, two VIP Experience tickets to the four-day Comic Con event, $500 spending cash and Ghostbusters merchandise.

We’re the first U.S. lottery to team up with Wizard World Comic Con and give players the chance to attend one of the conventions where fans of comic books and science fiction can meet some of their favorite stars, compete in costume contests and buy collectibles from movies and TV shows.

The second drawing on July 14 will feature 10 home movie prize packages. Each package, valued, at nearly $1,500, will include a Sony® 40-inch HDTV with Wi-Fi®, Sony® sound bar with wireless subwoofer, Sony® Blu-ray Disc™ player, $150 movie gift card, $150 spending cash for food and beverages, and Ghostbusters merchandise.

The promotion’s third drawing and grand-prize drawing will both be held on Aug. 16. The third drawing will feature 10 prizes of $1,000 and the final drawing will be for one prize of $5,000. Throughout the promotion, the lottery also will hold Ghostbusters-themed events at retail locations around the state.

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to already be a member or join our free VIP Club. On the Ghostbusters page at www.ialotteryvip.com, you’ll be asked to enter the 10-digit entry number from the front of a nonwinning ticket in the game along with the ticket number from the back.

Rules and complete details are on our website at www.ialottery.com and drawing results also will be posted there. Good luck, and thank you for playing!

TM & © 2016 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
          
© 2016 Sony Electronics. All Rights Reserved. 
Sony products, marks and logos are registered trademarks of Sony Electronics Inc. and are used with permission.

Hoops Winners: A Great Weekend At ‘The Well’!

Back when our “Holiday Hoopla” promotion winners won their prizes in our drawings from late October through early January, college basketball tournament time may have seemed like a long way off. But time has a way of flying by! And this weekend, we got to meet our lucky winners and have some fun with them during all the tourney games at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

A total of 48 hoops ticket winners and their guests joined us in a suite at “The Well” for the men’s tournament games on Thursday and Saturday. We saw fans of all ages supporting teams from all across the country, and Des Moines got good reviews during its first time as one of the regional hosting cities.

Thanks for a great time, everyone! Hope you enjoyed your time in Des Moines with us.

Listen for Your Chance To Win Lottery Swag From Radio Stations Around The State!

We told you last week about the Power for Life® promotion that’s underway to celebrate the start of the Lucky for Life® game here in Iowa, and now we’re amping up the fun with some radio giveaways.

The Iowa Lottery has teamed up with 11 radio stations across the state to give away some prize packs. Each pack includes coupons for free lottery plays plus the merchandise you can see in the photo here.

Click here for the full list of stations that are part of this month’s giveaways!

 

 

How You Can Get A Discount On Powerball, Lucky for Life

For the next four weeks, you can get a discount by buying tickets together in the Powerball^® and Lucky for Life^® games. It’s a promotion we’re calling Power for Life.

The promotion got underway yesterday. We’re offering a $2 discount on the bundled purchase of one Powerball with Power Play^® ticket and one Lucky for Life ticket for the next two drawings. Those plays regularly would cost $10, but they’ll be just $8 during the promotion, which runs through 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, March 12.

To get the discount, just ask the clerk at your local lottery retailer for the Power for Life promotion. You'll hear a "Woo hoo! It's your lucky day!" sound from the terminal and it will print two tickets, one for each game for the next two consecutive drawings.

All plays will be easy-pick, and only for the next two drawings. There will be one set of numbers printed on your Powerball ticket and one set of numbers on your Lucky for Life ticket.

Thanks for playing, and enjoy this discount!

 

Player Mail: Why Is That Entry Area Greyed Out?

A woman named Lesly sent us a good question on Facebook about our current “Holiday Hoopla™” promotion. I’m sharing the information here in case you’ve wondered the same thing.
 
Lesly said that she was trying to enter nonwinning lotto tickets into the promotion and wondered why the entry area for those tickets is greyed out. (I took a screen shot of the page so you can see it.)

As we shared with Lesly, that section is greyed out because lotto tickets (those in games like Powerball^® and Mega Millions^®)aren’t eligible for Holiday Hoopla. We made that area inactive so people wouldn’t mistakenly try to make entries that wouldn’t count.

We keep a complete list of the eligible games for Holiday Hoopla on our website and our VIP Club site. And as new promotions are introduced, we’ll do our best to make it clear which games are eligible for those as well. If a particular type of game isn’t eligible for the promotion involved, we’ll grey out the entry area for those tickets to help keep things on track.

Lottery Website Is Back Up!

UPDATE: Apparently, all we needed to do to get our website back up was to post a blog entry saying that it was down. :)

Of course, it was a lot more work than that. But the good news is that our website came back up at about 4:30 p.m. today.

We're working right now to update some drawing information and a few other details that weren't able to post while our site was down. That work should be completed within the hour, and things can get back to normal!  

Here are the details we posted earlier this afternoon: 

If you’ve tried to visit the Iowa Lottery’s website in the past day or so, you’ve noticed that it’s down. We’re aware of the situation and are working with our vendors to get things fixed as quickly as possible. But technological issues can take time to work through. We wish the site was already back up, and please know that we’re working on it.

At about 9:15 p.m. Thursday, construction work in the Kansas City area severed a major fiber-optic line serving a data center that houses the equipment for not only the Iowa Lottery’s website, but many other websites around the country. That initial outage then caused other equipment to fail, and our site has been dark since that time.

We are working on a number of fronts to bring our site back up. Our vendors both in the Kansas City area and here in Iowa are working to fix equipment outages. We also are investigating whether we can migrate our website at least temporarily to another hosting platform. Any of that work will take time to accomplish.

The website outage has not impacted other lottery functions. Our drawings are proceeding as normal, and we’re posting our drawing results in all the usual ways (minus the website, which is down). We’re temporarily putting special postings on many of our social media platforms to provide the winning numbers and you of course can access the details as normal in our retail locations and from our winning numbers line at 515-323-4633.

The outage on our main website also is not interfering with “Holiday Hoopla,” our holiday promotion currently underway. The lottery's VIP Club website is on a separate platform from our main website, so the VIP Club site has not been impacted. Players can feel free to continue to enter the promotion at www.ialotteryvip.com.

We’ll give updates on our website progress as we can. In the meantime, please bear with us, and we truly apologize for any inconvenience.

 

And The Winners In The First ‘Holiday Hoopla’ Drawing Are …

Five people are doing a happy dance today after their entries were selected as the winners in the first round of our “Holiday Hoopla™” promotion. The winners are from all over the state, places big and small, including Breda and Cedar Rapids.

Four players won college basketball tickets and another won a $500 cash prize in this week’s drawing. And now we’re into the new entry period for next week’s drawing!

Remember that the number of cash prizes up for grabs will increase with each drawing in our holiday promotion while the number of college basketball tournament tickets stays the same, with four pair on the line each time.

Good luck with your entries! For all the details about Holiday Hoopla, click here.

 

New Play It Again® Promotion Starts Monday!

We’ve been super busy here getting things ready to go for our next Play It Again promotion. We think you’re going to love this one. We have nine new holiday games hitting retailers Monday morning followed by the new holiday promotion that starts at noon. The nine new holiday games, along with two more releasing in November, will all be eligible for the holiday promotion. So save any nonwinners you get so you can enter them for a chance to win some awesome prizes!

We’ll be posting all the details on our website and on our blog at noon on Monday. We don’t want to give too much away, but we’re hoping this next promotion is a slam dunk!