ialottery blog

Congrats To Our 3rd Silverado Winner

Brittany Dana of Webster City said she never thought she’d win but she went ahead and entered the Summer of Silverado promotion anyway and hoped for the best. On August 15 she received a phone call from the Iowa Lottery letting her know she’d won the third Silverado truck!

Click on the video above to see Brittany’s reaction as she got to see her new truck for the first time! 

And don’t forget: The final drawing for the fourth 2019 All-new Chevy Silverado LT Trail Boss and five prizes of $5,000 will be Sept. 12!

Entries Have Ended & The $1 Million Prize Drawing Is Tomorrow!

Entries have ended in the “Woo Hoo A Million For You Giveaway,” and the prize drawing to determine the $1 million winner will be tomorrow!

Iowa Powerball players made a total of 165,265 entries in the promotion during its three-week entry period that closed at 8:59 a.m. today. I’d say the possibility of winning a $1 million prize in an Iowa-only promotion definitely caught people’s attention!

You’ll obviously want to know who won the big prize as quickly as possible – and we want that, too! Just know that behind the scenes, there are layers of security protocols involved and details that have to be double-checked. We do our best to complete the process as quickly as possible, but that work takes some time.

That’s why in the rules for the promotion, we explain that we’ll post the winner’s name on the lottery website by the end of the day on Thursday, or as soon as the information is available. We’ll announce the details just as soon as we can!

We’ll reach out directly to the $1 million winner at the email address provided in their VIP Club account and we’ll also call that person.

There’s no annuity option for the $1 million prize in the promotion, meaning that the winner will receive a check from the lottery for the net prize amount after withholdings. Here in Iowa, 24 percent federal withholding applies (which in the case of the $1 million prize is $240,000) along with 5 percent state withholding ($50,000 in this instance), so the winner will receive a prize check from the Iowa Lottery for $710,000.

The winner will need to claim the prize in person at lottery headquarters in Clive by 4 p.m. on June 27. Good luck to everyone in tomorrow’s drawing, and thank you for playing!

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.

48 Winners Headed To Bball Tourney In Des Moines!

Our Suite Seats promotion ended yesterday, and 48 lucky winners scored tickets to next month’s men’s basketball tournament at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Click here to see the list of winners!

 

We had winners from all around Iowa, and even one from Burnsville, Minn.! Each prize package includes a pair of tickets in an exclusive Lottery suite on either Thursday, March 21 or Saturday, March 23, along with food, beverages and a parking pass – everything they’ll need for a fun time at the tournament!

 

If you’re one of the winners, please check your inbox for an email on how to claim your prize.

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.

Didn’t Get Your Free-Play Coupon By Email? Now It’s On Our Website

We’ve come up with a new solution to make it easier for members of our players club to receive their monthly free-play coupons.
 
Now when you log into your VIP Club account, you’ll have access to several months of the VIP Connection, our players club newsletter. The most recent month’s edition will contain your monthly coupon and you can print it from there. We’ll still send out the newsletter by email as well, but this new process gives you another option to easily find it. 

As you likely already know, one of the perks of being a VIP Club member is that you get a coupon every month from us here at the lottery. The coupon is good for a free play in one of our InstaPlay or lotto games – Powerball, Mega Millions, Lotto America or Lucky for Life. The VIP Club newsletter that contains the coupon is emailed out on the first business day of each month to VIP Club members who have opted-in to receive electronic communications from the Iowa Lottery.

Some of our VIP Club members have had trouble receiving their newsletter and coupon by email. In some instances, our emails were getting caught in spam filters or being blocked entirely by particular email service providers. (The providers weren’t doing anything wrong – they took the security steps necessary to best protect their members’ accounts from spam or other malicious content. But in some cases, those safeguards also prevented email from getting through that people wanted, including our monthly newsletter with coupon.)

Please note that you must be logged into your VIP Club account to access the newsletter. If you visit the VIP Club site without logging in, you won’t see the member-exclusive areas, including the link to the VIP Connection newsletter.

And remember that each VIP Club coupon has a unique, single-use code, so even if you have multiple images of your coupon, it can only be redeemed once.

Barcode Not Showing On Your Monthly Coupon? There’s A Way Around That.

In the past month, we’ve heard from some members of our VIP Club who had trouble getting the barcode to display on their monthly free-play coupon, and they thought that meant the coupon couldn’t be redeemed. But there’s a work-around for that so you can still get your free play. I’m sharing the inside scoop with you here on the blog so you’ll have the details, too!

If for some reason the personalized barcode doesn’t print on your monthly VIP Club coupon or it doesn’t display when you call up the coupon on your mobile device, ask the retailer to manually enter the coupon. They’ll need to press the “Special Functions” tab on the lottery terminal’s main screen, then press the “Coupon” button on the left side the screen. That will bring up a box where they can key in the 16-digit code printed on your coupon so it can be redeemed.

Also remember that you need to present your coupon to the retailer BEFORE the ticket is printed. This month’s VIP Club coupon is for a free $1 play in Lotto America, so look for it in your VIP Club newsletter! 

Hey, VIP Club Members: Don’t Forget To Update Your Profile!

Since this time of year brings with it spring cleaning, here’s a reminder to tidy up the details in your VIP Club profile if you’re a member of our player’s club. If anything has changed since the last time you visited it, please update your profile! Here’s an example from this month about why that’s important: One of our VIP Club members almost missed out on a prize in our social-media contest because her information was out of date.

When we initially reached out to our contest winners, our email ended up in the women’s spam folder, so she didn’t see it. So next we tried to call her. The phone number was no longer in service. Luckily, we were able to finally make contact with her so she didn’t miss out on the prize before the claim period expired. But if your information is out of date, you could end up in the same situation!

To review/update your VIP Club profile, just log into your account and click on the “Manage Profile” option on the left side of the screen. You can then verify your mailing address, phone number, email preferences and more. If you have any questions about updating your profile, feel free to email us at wmaster@ialottery.com and we can help you through the process.

 

 

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.

‘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!

Player Mail: FAQs About Secret Santa Promotion

We’ve gotten several great questions over the last few days from players about our Secret Santa holiday promotion, so we’ve compiled them here in an overall Q-and-A list so you’ll have the details, too.

My phone/tablet won’t scan my ticket – how do I enter this ticket?

Here’s several tips for scanning your ticket on our app: 

• Make sure all of the security coating is removed from the “Scratch 2 Cash” box on the front of your ticket;
• Use the “light” feature within the app to illuminate the area while scanning;
• Move the ticket around so that your phone’s camera can detect the square barcode;
• Hold the ticket farther away from your phone’s camera so it can focus better on the barcode.

If your eligible ticket won’t scan – for whatever reason – you can enter it manually on the app. Just type the ticket’s numbers in the boxes using your phone’s keyboard.

Can I enter tickets in both the Secret Santa cash drawing and the Not So Secret Santa cash drawing?

Yes, of course! You can only enter each ticket once into either, the Secret Santa drawing or the Not So Secret Santa drawing. However, if you are entering multiple tickets you can mix it up and enter some of your tickets into the Secret Santa drawing and some of them into the Not So Secret Santa drawing. Remember, the Not So Secret Santa cash prize amount is always listed, while the Secret Santa cash prize amount is not. The Secret Santa cash prize may be greater than, less than or the same as the Not So Secret Santa prize – you’ll find out when we draw the winners for that drawing period. 

How do I reset my VIP Club account password on the app?
Unfortunately, you aren’t able to reset your VIP Club account password on the app at this time. This is something we’re working on for future Play It Again® promotions, but for now, you’ll have to reset your password via our website on your laptop or desktop computer or your tablet.

Can I register for a VIP Club account on the app?
Unfortunately, no. You’ll need to register for a VIP Club account on a laptop or desktop computer. Then once you’re fully registered, you’ll be able to login to your VIP Club account on the app.

Do you have a question that wasn’t answered here? Check the frequently asked questions page on our website, or email us at: Wmaster@ialottery.com.

New This Year: Enter Our Holiday Promotion Via Our Mobile App!

 

For the very first time, VIP Club members will be able to enter our new Play It Again promotion - - Secret Santa - from a smartphone or tablet. This promotion started today and runs through Dec. 29. Click on the video above to find out all the details!

Player Mail: I Haven’t Gotten My VIP Club Coupon This Month!

We’ve heard from several members of our VIP Club in the past week who say they haven’t received their monthly coupon for a free play and they’re wondering why.

Our monthly newsletter with the coupon in it was delivered as usual on July 3, the first business day of the month. But this is the second month into a new distribution system we’re using to send our emails. With the messages coming from a slightly different sending address, our emails containing the newsletter and coupon may be getting caught in spam filters or security settings. 

The content of our emails remains the same – it’s just the sending email address that has changed. You may want to add “ialottery.wmaster@public.govdelivery.com” to your address book or the “safe senders” list within your email account to help ensure you’ll continue receiving email messages from us.

 

 

Player Mail: Did The Lottery Get A New Email Address?

Members of our VIP Club and players who subscribe to our daily Winning Numbers emails may have noticed that our communications have been coming from a different address for the last few weeks.

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you, we are using a different email address to send these messages.

The new email address is ialottery.wmaster@public.govdelivery.com and it’s part of a new distribution system we’re using to send batches of emails at one time.

The content of our emails remains the same – it’s just the sending email address that has changed. One thing you may want to consider is adding “ialottery.wmaster@public.govdelivery.com” to your address book or your “safe senders” list within your email account to help ensure you can continue receiving email messages from us.

Also note: We’re still accepting emails at our Wmaster@ialottery.com address and if you respond to one of our messages from the new email address, we’ll still get it.

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.

 

Holiday Envelopes Make Gift-Giving Easy

As you work through your holiday shopping list trying to find those perfect age-appropriate gifts for everyone, we wanted to remind you that we distribute holiday envelopes to retail locations, but they’re popular, so supplies in some places may run out. That’s why we also make them available electronically, so you can print them on demand.
 
This is just one of the many perks of our free VIP Club. Simply log in to your account then click on the “Free Downloads” tab. From there you’ll click on the “Learn more” under the Lottery Envelopes section.

 

There are quite a few holiday envelope options to choose from so pick your favorites and print them out on standard letter-size paper. And they’re easy to fold together. Then stuff with a few fun lottery games and check another person off your list!

 

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.

VIP Club Newsletter Goes Out On First BUSINESS Day Of The Month

When the newsletter for members of our players club went out as scheduled on Oct. 3, we got questions from some folks who wondered if that was the right day. It was, and here’s the background:

Our VIP Connection newsletter, which gives sneak peeks about new games and promotions and contains the monthly free-play coupon for members of our free VIP Club, is sent out on the first business day of each month. Oftentimes, that’s also the first calendar day of the month. But this month goes to show that’s not always the case. Oct. 1 was a Saturday, so the newsletter went out on Oct. 3, the following Monday.

In November and December, the first calendar day and the first business day will be one and the same, so the newsletter will go out on the first of the month. But January will see two timing issues come into play: Jan. 1 will be on a Sunday and the lottery’s offices will be closed Jan. 2 for the New Year’s holiday. So the VIP Connection won’t go out that month until Jan. 3.

We may have to remind people about that as January gets closer, but you’ll be in the know if you look for our newsletter on the first business day each month.

(Here are some helpful hints if you’re a member of our VIP Club and you haven’t been seeing your coupon for a free play each month: Remember that you’ll find it in the monthly newsletter. It’s always right at the bottom of the page. You’ll need to have clicked “Yes” in your VIP Club account to receive email communications from the lottery. You can do that either when you sign up for the club or by visiting the “Manage Profile” page if you’re already a member.       

The emails come from our Webmaster address -- wmaster@ialottery.com. So if you’ve accepted communications from us and you’re still not seeing them, please check your spam folder and double-check your inbox. And, be sure to add our Webmaster address to your contacts or safe senders list. That can help ensure that our emails make it through to you.)

Player Mail: Why Haven’t I Gotten My Monthly Coupon For A Free Play?

We’ve heard from several players this month who haven’t received their September VIP Club free-play coupon, and we think we’ve figured out why.
 
Nearly all those who contacted us have Mediacom or CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) email accounts. Mediacom, CenturyLink and other email service providers routinely update their spam filters to help their customers avoid malicious emails. It appears that the latest security upgrades have kept our emails from getting through. It’s a situation we’ve seen a few times through the years with different service providers as they do their best to protect their customers’ accounts. 

If your VIP Club account is linked to an email address that ends in @mchsi.com, @mediacombb.net, @q.com or @centurylink.net, you most likely have not received your coupon for a free play this month. The lottery’s email to you likely got caught at the administrative level by those service providers.

We’ve found a work-around to get the monthly newsletter and free-play coupon through to players with email addresses from those providers. If you haven’t received your coupon yet, please email us at Wmaster@ialottery.com and we’ll try our best to send it to you.

And we’ll keep investigating possible options for better delivery of coupons to our VIP Club members. We know you enjoy getting the coupons and we want them to make it through!

 

Changes Coming: We’re Updating Our Website Friday

On Friday, we’ll debut an updated version of our website. It’s part of the changes we’re making as we introduce the lottery’s new logo, which I blogged about last week. The updates will produce what we think is a cleaner design for a website that hopefully will be even better to use.

There may be brief periods as the updates are being applied Friday morning that things will look a little off. As the updates are made, it takes time for the new pages to cache. If you try to access them as that is occurring, some pages may look “kinda wonky.”

We’ll be updating both our main site at www.ialottery.com and our VIP Club website at www.ialotteryvip.com, so the updates will take a few hours. We anticipate that the updates will begin sometime between 7-8 a.m. on Friday and our goal is to finish up by around 10 a.m. that day.

If you have difficulty with our site on Friday or as we move ahead, try clearing out your web browser history or refresh the web page. Either of those tricks may help get things to display correctly.

The addresses of our websites are not being changed, so any existing bookmarks you have should continue to work.

Player Mail: Do The Ball Drawings & Computer Draws Match?

Here’s an interesting question we got on Facebook in case you’ve ever wondered the same thing. A man named Travis had this question: “If a computer randomly picks the winning numbers for lottery games, how are you then able to draw the same numbers with the balls on live TV?”

It’s an interesting – but mistaken – idea that we don’t think we've been asked about before. The quick answer is that the results in lottery drawings are determined by ball-drawing equipment or computerized random-number generator equipment, but not both.

The drawings in Powerball^® and Mega Millions^®, as you likely know, are conducted live on television using ball-drawing machines. The drawings in some of our other games, such as Pick 3 and Pick 4, and our VIP Club drawings, are conducted using random-number generators.

It’s an either/or equation, but not both. Both types of equipment have their own pluses and minuses. The key factor is to have the necessary security controls to protect the integrity of the games, and that is something we’re constantly working on as technology advances.

So, it’s one or the other, but not both. Great question!

 

He Asked ... And She Said YES!!!!

Wizard World^® Comic Con in Des Moines will forever be a special time for one of our VIP Club members. Steve Regan of Fairfield won Comic Con tickets in one of our pop-up contests and made BIG plans for his time at the fan convention. Click on the video above to see the happy ending!

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.

Player Mail: Where Can I Get Your Holiday Envelopes?

A woman named Michelle sent us a question on Facebook this week that’s very topical for the holidays. She asked where she could find our holiday envelopes for giving lottery tickets as gifts.

We distribute the envelopes to retail locations, but they’re popular, so supplies in some places may run out. That’s why we also make them available electronically, so you can print them on demand.

To download the envelopes, log in to our VIP Club website (www.ialotteryvip.com) and click on the “Free Downloads” tab. Then click on “Lottery Envelopes” to see all the options available, including our holiday designs. They print out on standard 8.5x11 paper. And they’re easy to fold together.

You’ll be holiday ready, easy-peasy!

 

We’re Combining Our Monthly Coupons With Our Newsletter

Here’s a head’s up for members of our player loyalty program or anyone interested in receiving a free-play coupon each month from the lottery: Beginning in January, the monthly coupons we send out will be included in our VIP Club newsletter.

Our December free-play coupons to members of our VIP Club just got emailed out today, and at the top of each coupon, we included a message in red. It tells people that beginning next month, we’ll include the coupon in the VIP Connection newsletter. We’re trying to help cut down on electronic clutter – and by making the change, that’s one less email in your inbox. Hey, every little bit helps, right?

Some folks who got the coupon today have emailed us back, asking how they can sign up for the VIP Connection newsletter. The quick answer is: You don’t need to, because you’re already getting it.

The monthly coupon and newsletter both are sent to members of our VIP Club who accept electronic communications from us at the Iowa Lottery. Both emails come from our Webmaster address (wmaster@ialottery.com), so if you’ve been receiving one of them, the other is also being sent to the same email address that you used in your VIP Club account.

If for some reason you haven’t been seeing the newsletter, please check your spam folder, and look through your inbox again. And, be sure to add our Webmaster address to your contacts or safe senders list. That can help ensure that our emails make it through to you.

If you’re interested in signing up for the VIP Club, click here! And starting next month, members of the club will receive their coupon in their newsletter on the first business day of the month.

 

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!