ialottery blog

I’m a snowbird, can I use my VIP Club free play where I am for the winter?

Here’s a question we just got from a member of our VIP Club who’s enjoying warmer weather for the winter. Other folks may also be out of state at times and have the same question.

The woman said she’s a snowbird currently in Florida, and she wondered if while she’s there she can use the free lottery play she gets each month for being a member of the Iowa Lottery’s VIP Club.

The short answer is no, but here’s the background involved:

We send free plays by email to our VIP Club members each month, and in this instance, the woman was checking her email from another state. We’re all often on the go these days, so we understand that you may check your email from many different places.

But in the case of our free plays, they can only be redeemed at lottery retail locations in Iowa. The free play is from the Iowa Lottery, not a lottery in another state.

From an operational perspective, lottery terminals outside of Iowa can’t redeem our free plays because they’re not programmed to read them. And from a cost perspective, we’re not asking another lottery to cover the expense of the free plays we send out. That wouldn’t be very neighborly of us!

So please know that we’ll continue to send our VIP Club members free plays each month. It’s a thank you from us to show our appreciation for you as a lottery player. You can redeem your free play anywhere in Iowa that lottery tickets are sold!

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.

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.

Plans For Tomorrow: Celebrate Iowa!

As you’re out and about tomorrow, pause for a moment to look around you and just enjoy Iowa. Because tomorrow is National Iowa Day!

That’s according to the National Day Calendar™, the website that tracks unusual national days and has a day for just about everything.

So why Feb. 8? It’s not Iowa’s birthday. That’s Dec. 28, when Iowa became the nation’s 29th state back in 1846. But the National Day Calendar folks have declared an official day for each U.S. state in the order they joined the union, and Iowa’s date just happens to be tomorrow.

So here are just some of the awesome things about our state:

The city of Strawberry Point is home to the world’s largest strawberry.

“Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” has dubbed Burlington’s Snake Alley as the most crooked street in the world.

West Okoboji is the deepest natural lake in the state, at 136 feet deep. But East Okoboji is the longest natural lake in the state, at 16 miles long.

The community of Crystal Lake boasts a statue that is the world’s largest bullhead fish. 

Iowa is the only state whose east AND west borders are formed entirely by water. (Extra points if you know that it’s the Missouri and Big Sioux rivers on our western border and the Mississippi River on the east.)

And, Cornell College is the only school in the nation that has its entire campus listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

(With this blog entry, we just gave you several items to win that Iowa trivia game you can start with your friends tomorrow! Happy Iowa Day, everyone!) 

Hey, I Bought A Lottery Ticket In Iowa While I Was Traveling. Now What?

A man from Connecticut just sent us a question you may also have when it comes to lottery tickets from other states. The man said he bought a lottery ticket in Iowa while he was here on a recent trip and – good news – he won a prize! He didn’t cash the ticket while he was here, and when he got home, he wondered about his options for claiming the winnings. 

If you buy a lottery ticket in Iowa, you’ll need to claim any prize involved from us at the Iowa Lottery. And if you buy a ticket in another state, you’ll need to claim any prize won from it in that state. It’s a simple process to claim most of our prizes by mail, so no worries! 

So why is that? There’s an enormous amount of technology that goes into running a lottery today, and each state lottery has its own computer system to track the tickets it sells. That, in turn, means that the computer systems in each state are independent from each other. So, our lottery terminals here in Iowa can’t read tickets from out of state, and vice versa. In addition, the money raised from the sale of lottery tickets in each state stays in that state to support worthy causes there.

If visiting an Iowa Lottery retail location or one of our offices just won’t work for you, remember that we always offer players the option of claiming most prizes through the mail. (There are a few exceptions to that. For example, if you win a jackpot, that prize has to be claimed in person at our headquarters in Clive.)

Most other state lotteries also offer players the ability to claim prizes by mail. Check with the respective state lottery from which you purchased your ticket about the details in that regard.

We wish everyone safe travels this summer -- and good luck on any lottery tickets you buy along the way!

MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB™ TV Game Show Premieres Next Month

Mark your calendars, the MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB game show is coming to a TV near you on March 28 and 29.

While state lotteries continue to work on the future of the MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB lottery game, production for the TV game show has continued.

Hundreds of contestants from around the country, including eight Iowa Lottery players, attended tapings of the game show last month at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and another eight Iowa Lottery players await their chance to win a million dollars during additional tapings scheduled for later this month.

The show will begin airing locally late next month in Iowa markets on the following TV stations:

• WQAD-TV in Moline, Ill., Channel 8
• KHQA-TV in Quincy, Ill., Channel 7
• KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids, Channel 2
• KTVO-TV in Kirksville, Mo., Channel 3
• KCCI-TV in Des Moines, Channel 8
• KIMT-TV in Mason City, Channel 3
• KMEG-TV in Dakota Dunes, S.D., Channel 14
• KETV-TV in Omaha, Neb., Channel 7.

Tune in to cheer on the Iowa Lottery contestants.

Yes, The Next Game-Show Drawing Will Be Jan. 13

We’ve gotten some questions from players since announcing that sales will be suspended in the MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB™ lottery game, and we’re doing our best to get you the answers.

Several folks have asked us about the status of the next drawing to determine winners of trips to Las Vegas for tapings of the TV game show that’s a part of the game. That next drawing will proceed as scheduled on Jan. 13. So any webcodes you have entered for that drawing are still valid.   

Here is a quick recap of the key dates you need to know relating to the game:

Sales in the current format of the MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB lottery game will end Dec. 26 across the country. Players can continue to win prizes in the remaining weekly drawings this month and tickets in the game will be sold until the cutoff for its final weekly drawing, which will occur at 10:15 p.m. on Dec. 26. The sales cutoff time here in Iowa is 8:59 p.m. on the night of the drawing.

The deadline to enter the next TV game show drawing is Jan. 6, and that drawing to determine trip winners will take place a week later as scheduled. The players who win those trips will travel Feb. 19-23 to Las Vegas.       

The initial tapings of the TV game show also will go forward, so our game-show trip winners scheduled to travel next month to Las Vegas will attend as planned Jan. 8-12.

Jealous! They Got To Meet Hall of Famers!

We told you last week here on the blog that our “Hall of Fame” trip winners and their guests had arrived in Ohio for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 50th Anniversary Fan Festival. Well, now we’ve got the images of all the fun they had on their trip. Color us officially jealous!

Congrats, guys! It looks like you had a great time!

Your Last Chance to Get in on the Fun!

You had asked for more chances to win in our promotions, so we extended this year's campaign to three drawings from October to January for everything from gift cards to trips to Las Vegas!
 
"Winter of Winners" kicked off in October with the debut of 10 holiday-themed scratch games you can enter for a chance to win great prizes.
 
Here's the background about this early start: Player entries in our holiday campaigns have hit record numbers for the past three years straight. But even with that, folks have been asking us for even more second chances to win the very hottest prizes.
 
To enter Winter of Winners, you'll need to join or already be a member of our free VIP Club. Complete rules for the promotion are on our website, and we'll also post the drawing results there.
 
Here's the drawing schedule:
 
• On Nov. 14, we selected 100 winners of Bass Pro Shops® gift cards for $250 each.
• On Dec. 14, we selected 40 winners of home-entertainment systems worth $2,019 each. Each electronics package included a premium-brand, 42-inch LED HDTV with five-piece mounting kit; 1,000-watt home theater system with mobile digital device dock; and Blu-ray Disc™ player.
• In the third and final drawing on Jan. 14, 10 trip packages to THE PALMS™ Casino and Resort in Las Vegas will be given away. Each trip package, valued at $4,315, will include airfare for two to Las Vegas; a three-day, two-night stay for two in a deluxe room at THE PALMS™; roundtrip ground transportation from the destination airport to THE PALMS™; ticket allowance for two tickets to a Las Vegas show; and $1,000 spending cash.
 
You'll use nonwinning tickets in this year's holiday-themed scratch games as your entries. (Remember, winning tickets are not eligible.) The number of entries you’ll get corresponds to the purchase price of the tickets you enter. For example, a $2 ticket will get two entries in the promotion, while a $10 ticket is good for 10 entries.

Here are the tickets you can enter:
 
• $1 Holiday Gold or Happy Howlidays = one entry per nonwinning ticket entered.
• $2 North Pole Bingo, Merry MONOPOLY™ or Best Wishes For A Swell Season = two entries per nonwinning ticket entered.
• $3 Holiday Crossword or Jingle Bell Jackpot = three entries per nonwinning ticket entered.
• $5 Holiday Black or Peppermint Super Crossword = five entries per nonwinning ticket entered.
• $10 Holiday Treasures = 10 entries per nonwinning ticket entered.
 
Click on the "Enter Here" button on the Winter of Winners page to enter the 10-digit entry number from the front of a nonwinning holiday scratch ticket, along with the ticket number from the back.
 
A few other requirements to keep in mind:
 
• You can only enter the promotion on our VIP Club website. Hand-delivered or mailed entries won't be accepted.
• You can enter each ticket only once.
• And, while you can enter multiple times, you can win only one prize per drawing. Entries that aren't selected as winners in one of the first two drawings will still be eligible for the following drawing(s).
 
And, of course, all the holiday-themed tickets you enter in Winter of Winners will also earn you points that you can use in our VIP Club store.
 
You’ve got until noon on Jan. 12 to get those entries in for the last drawing. Good luck!