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THIS Is How Things Went For Our Warehouse Dash Winners!

They were selected as winners a few months ago during our holiday Warehouse Dash promotion, and now we have the details about how our contestants did during their 90-second dash to grab all the items they could!

This past weekend, the Iowa Lottery’s four Warehouse Dash winners got an exclusive, all-expense-paid trip to Chicago. After a welcome dinner Friday night at Michael Jordan’s Steak House, they each got to make their warehouse dash on Saturday.

Angela McClelland of Des Moines went first, followed by Shelby Nyweide of Tipton, Mike Thompson of Storm Lake, and Fawn Berstler-McCrabb of Marengo. They each had a partner with them for the dash, and their goal was to grab all the items they could fit into two giant wheeled carts. (Under the rules for the dash, one person pushes the cart while the other grabs items off the shelves.) It was fun to see the strategy the teams put into their selections!

Drones were high on the list of the hottest items snagged by this year’s teams! And of course big-screen televisions, laptops and portable speaker systems, but also camping gear and premium cooking sets.

In the end, each winner ended up with an entire pallet piled high with items from their dash. And hopefully, memories of a very fun and unique trip.

Congratulations to our Warehouse Dash winners! Enjoy your loot!

And for all our players, know that we’re making plans now for more exclusive prizes in our upcoming games and promotions! Doing another Warehouse Dash is definitely a possibility. 

This Time, It’s A Little Different: You Can Still Enter For The $100,000 Prize

We switched things up a bit in our holiday promotion this year, and the change means you’ve got 2½ more weeks to enter for your shot at the grand prize of $100,000!

A lot of times in our promotions, entries for the grand prize drawing end at the same time as those in the last of the initial drawings. But that’s not the case with the Warehouse Dash® promotion.

The winners have been selected for the Warehouse Dash trips and the $5,000 prizes up for grabs in the promotion’s initial drawings, but the entry period for the $100,000 grand prize lasts until the morning of Jan. 4. You have until 9:59 a.m. that day to enter eligible tickets from our holiday scratch games for a chance to win that prize.

And, if you already entered tickets earlier in the drawing and those entries weren’t selected in one of the initial drawings, they also remain eligible for the grand-prize drawing for $100,000.
We’ll hold that drawing on Jan. 6.

So, congratulations to the 20 winners of $5,000 cash in the Warehouse Dash’s first four drawings and the four Warehouse Dash shopping spree winners:

     • Mike Thompson of Storm Lake
     • Shelby Nyweide of Tipton
     • Angela McClelland of Des Moines
     • Fawn Berstler of Marengo

We’re excited to see who will be selected as the $100,000 winner next month!

(We’ve heard from folks asking what it’s like to get to do the Warehouse Dash because they’ve had so much fun thinking about it. If you haven’t seen the videos of our 2012 winners, you can check them out here and here. As one of the winners says, there’s a whole lot of strategy and planning, but it all kind of goes out the window once the contestants start running!)

Warehouse Dash is a registered trademark of Hinda, Inc. Please note that sales in the "Reindeer Games" holiday scratch game ended Nov. 6, but any eligible tickets purchased in it can still be entered into the Warehouse Dash promotion.

You Asked For It, So We Brought It Back: The Warehouse Dash!

Ever since we offered it the first time, players have talked about it. So we’re bringing it back: the Warehouse Dash®!

Starting today, you can enter eligible tickets from our holiday scratch games for a chance to win a Warehouse Dash shopping spree or cash – you choose! The promotion will give away four 90-second, all-you-can-grab Warehouse Dash shopping sprees, 20 prizes of $5,000, and a grand prize of $100,000.

Entries started at 10 a.m. today and the promotion runs through early January, with its final drawing date on Jan. 6.

Players can enter the promotion using nonwinning tickets in the 13 holiday-themed scratch games we’ll have available this year. Tickets in 11 of those games are already on sale, with two more holiday games hitting the market on Nov. 1.

In each of the promotion’s four initial drawings, a Warehouse Dash shopping spree will be awarded along with five prizes of $5,000. As you’re making your entries, you’ll choose the prize category you want. Each ticket entered counts as one entry in the promotion, regardless of the purchase price of the ticket.

All entries not selected in one of the initial drawings will remain eligible for the grand-prize drawing for $100,000. Entries will not carry over from one drawing to the next, except for the grand-prize drawing. You can win only one Warehouse Dash prize in the promotion, but you can win a $5,000 prize in each of the initial drawings and the $100,000 grand prize if you enter them all.

The initial drawings will be on Nov. 4, Nov. 18, Dec. 2 and Dec. 16, with the $100,000 grand-prize drawing on Jan. 6.

So, what’s it like to do the Warehouse Dash? Check out videos of our 2012 winners here and here. There was so much strategy and list-making – followed by running and yelling and cheering! I think it’s safe to say that their heart rates really got up there!

Thank you for playing, good luck in the promotion, and remember to limber up for the dash!

Warehouse Dash is a registered trademark of Hinda, Inc. Please note that sales in the "Reindeer Games" holiday scratch game ended Nov. 6, but any eligible tickets purchased in it can continue to be entered into the Warehouse Dash promotion.   

Second Round of Warehouse Dash Winners

Check out our final three Warehouse Dash winners in Chicago as they run through our warehouse in 90 seconds grabbing as much merchandise as they can!

Our Next Round Of ‘Warehouse Dash’ Contestants!

The next round of lucky contestants in our “Warehouse Dash” promotion has been chosen, so now we’re gearing up for another fun weekend trip to Chicago!

And just like the last time, our three contestants for the June Warehouse Dash trip are from across the state. A big congratulations to:

•    Ruth Dolter of Dubuque
•    Joshua Meier of Sioux City
•    Donna Zoutte of Knoxville.

So what do they have to look forward to? Click here to see video of our first-round winners in action as they ran through the warehouse grabbing prizes! Those three teams each went home with $10,000-$13,000 in merchandise from their dash!  

If this is the first time you’re hearing about the Warehouse Dash, here’s the background: The lottery is throwing open the doors to the main warehouse that supplies the prizes in our VIP Club store, including televisions and other sought-after electronics, housewares, jewelry, camping gear, sporting equipment and more.

Three contestants were chosen for a Warehouse Dash trip earlier this month and now our second round of contestants is gearing up for their trip in June. Each contestant gets to choose a partner to accompany them on the trip and participate in a 90-second dash through the prize warehouse to grab as much top-brand merchandise as they can.

The contestants and their guests get a two-night stay June 22-23 at the Chicago Marriott® Downtown Magnificent Mile hotel, a welcome dinner at the nearby Fleming's® steakhouse, transportation to and from the warehouse for the dash, and then are able to relax and have fun on their own on the second night. Each contestant also receives $1,500 travel and spending cash and the lottery pays the state and federal taxes for the prize package.

Our Warehouse Dash Contestants In Action

We posted a slideshow of all the fun earlier this week and now we’ve got video of our “Warehouse Dash” contestants in action. Click on the video above for the best seat in the house of all the fun this past weekend!

Winners, Winners Galore!

We just got back from the first round of our Warehouse Dash promotion and were all prepared to tell you about that today when a big winner came in. So now we have two fun stories to tell!

Congrats to Ruben Cardona, Melissa Kramer and Jan Peterson on the grand haul they made this weekend on the Warehouse Dash trip. Check out a slideshow of their experience here.

And congratulations to Dennis Ryzner of the Quad Cities, who claimed a $1 million prize this morning in the “Lifetime Riches” scratch game! Click on the video above to see Dennis’ story

Answering ‘Warehouse Dash’ Questions

As we’re nearing the date of our first “Warehouse Dash” trip next week, we’re continuing to get great questions from folks who are entering tickets in the promotion now, hoping they’ll be selected as a contestant for our second trip in June.

In particular, we’ve heard from folks wondering about the transportation costs it would take to get to Chicago for the weekend event, and from folks who are concerned about whether they should enter promotion if they have a disability and wouldn’t be able to run through the prize warehouse to grab all the good stuff they can in 90 seconds.

Not to worry, we’ve answered those questions and more in one of our Player Mail videos. Click on the link above to hear all about it!

We can’t wait to see our first three winners make their warehouse dash on May 12. After their weekend get-away, we’ll have video here for you to check out of them making the run through the warehouse. Congrats again to: Ruben Cardona of Lowden, Melissa Kramer of Marshalltown and Jan Peterson of Harlan. We’ll see you in Chicago!As we’re nearing the date of our first “Warehouse Dash” trip next week, we’re continuing to get great questions from folks who are entering tickets in the promotion now, hoping they’ll be selected as a contestant for our second trip in June.

In particular, we’ve heard from folks wondering about the transportation costs it would take to get to Chicago for the weekend event, and from folks who are concerned about whether they should enter promotion if they have a disability and wouldn’t be able to run through the prize warehouse to grab all the good stuff they can in 90 seconds.

Not to worry, we’ve answered those questions and more in one of our Player Mail videos. Click on the link above to hear all about it!

We can’t wait to see our first three winners make their warehouse dash on May 12. After their weekend get-away, we’ll have video here for you to check out of them making the run through the warehouse. Congrats again to: Ruben Cardona of Lowden, Melissa Kramer of Marshalltown and Jan Peterson of Harlan. We’ll see you in Chicago!

Did YOU Win? Twitter Contest Winners Announced!

Thanks to everyone who entered our Twitter contest today! Our entrants were “dashing” around the website in search of the answer.

Today’s question was: What is the name of our current promotion? Almost all of you got it right!

We’ve been talking about it for a couple of months now: the answer is Warehouse Dash! Players can enter nonwinning “Did I Win?” scratch tickets into their FREE VIP Club accounts for a chance to win the dash of a lifetime. We’ve blogged about that before here.

Today, we used a random number generator, or “RNG” to determine the winners of the contest instead of doing an in-house game. It allowed us to get you the results much more quickly.

Our three winners have each won $20 in the Did I Win? scratch game! And remember, if you have any nonwinning tickets, you can also enter them into your free VIP Club account to earn Points For Prizes.


Congratulations to:
@scoochnew
@rinniesmom
@Chas_Blakemore

The winners need to contact us by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, to claim their prizes.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this month’s contest. Stay tuned for the next one coming soon!

Winners, Get Ready to Dash!

We held our first drawing in the "Warehouse Dash®" promotion today, and we have the winners!

In case you don't remember, the lottery is throwing open the doors to the warehouse that supplies all of its VIP Club prizes, including televisions and other sought-after electronics, housewares, jewelry, camping gear, sporting equipment and more.

We planned for two drawings this time, and the first one was held this morning.

A BIG congratulations to:

• Ruben Cardona of Lowden
• Melissa Kramer of Marshalltown
• Jan Peterson of Harlan

It's awesome to see winners come up from all across Iowa! These three lucky players will get to choose a partner to accompany them on a weekend getaway to Chicago and participate in a 90-second dash through that prize warehouse to grab as much top-brand merchandise as they can.

The three contestants and their guests will get a two-night stay May 11-12 at the Chicago Marriott® Downtown Magnificent Mile hotel, a welcome dinner at the nearby Fleming's® steakhouse, transportation to and from the warehouse for the dash, and then be able to relax and have fun on their own on the second night. Each contestant will receive $1,500 travel and spending cash and the lottery also will pay the state and federal taxes for the prize package.

And don't forget, the promotion isn't over! You can keep entering your nonwinning "Did I Win?" scratch tickets in your free VIP Club account for a chance to have your name drawn in the second drawing on May 23 for the same weekend get-away package June 22-23.

Cash or Dash! Twitter Contest

We know during our next Twitter contest, you’ll be wondering: “Did I Win?”

That’s the theme we’re going with to celebrate our latest promotion, Warehouse Dash. And in our Twitter contest, you can have the chance to win one of three prize packs of $20 in “Did I Win?” scratch tickets!

Currently, players can enter nonwinning Did I Win? scratch tickets into their FREE VIP Club accounts for a chance to win a trip to Chicago to dash through a warehouse full of merchandise. We blogged more about that here.

Our Twitter contest is set for noon on Tuesday, April 17. To be eligible to enter, just follow us on Twitter – it’s free to create an account if you don’t already have one. Then give us the correct answer to our super-easy contest question and you’ll be entered for a chance to win one of the ticket prize packages.   

At noon next Tuesday, we’ll pose our question on Twitter. Reply with your answer within the 15-minute time limit and you’ll be entered in the contest! Reply to @ialottery on Twitter. (Don’t direct message us on Twitter, as direct messages aren’t eligible for entry.)

We’ll select the three winners in our contest, then we’ll blog about the results and link to that blog entry on Twitter and Facebook.

If you win, you’ll need to contact us with your name, date of birth and mailing address so we can send out your tickets. Winners will have until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, to contact us with their information in order to claim their prize.

A few other details:
• You must be at least 21 years old to enter.
• You must live in Iowa.
• There’s no purchase necessary to enter or win!
• Only one entry per person. Duplicates will be removed.

And now for the fine print: This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter. You understand that you are providing your information to the Iowa Lottery and not to Twitter. The information you provide will only be used for the lottery’s Twitter Contest. The risk of loss for electronic misdelivery, late delivery or failure of receipt for information entered electronically remains with entrant regardless of the cause of the transmission failure.

A BIG Thank You For Liking Our Games

We’ve just gotten some great news here at the lottery, and we know that in the end, we owe it all to you, our players.

Sales of the Iowa Lottery’s core products set records in February, led by continued strong sales of instant-scratch tickets and $2 Powerball. Lottery proceeds to state causes also were strong for the month, hitting nearly $7.8 million. That’s a 69 percent increase from February of last year, and these latest results keep the lottery on pace for another record year.
   
We’re always proud to know that the proceeds raised by lottery sales will make a difference for the vital programs that benefit us all. And we also know we couldn’t have done it without you! Our goal is to provide you with fun games to play and prizes to win while raising as much money as we can as responsibly as we can. We hope the record shows we’ve been doing that.

But while we’re celebrating this good news, we’re still keeping an eye on fuel prices. If you’ve followed our blog for awhile, you’ve heard us say before that fuel prices are one of the biggest issues that can impact lottery sales. And with predictions for the possibility of $4 to $5 gas heading into summer, we know our sales in the coming months may be affected. Hey, we all feel it when prices head up!

February was the lottery’s highest sales month ever for its core products. The monthly total of $30.2 million in combined sales from lotto, scratch and pull-tab tickets topped our previous monthly sales record for core products set back in March 2011 by more than $3 million and kept the lottery on pace for a double-digit sales increase over our previous fiscal year. 

February also saw the lottery’s highest monthly sales in its history for instant-scratch tickets, which totaled $17.5 million, an increase of nearly $500,000 from the previous record, which had just been set in January. And January’s figures had topped the previous record high that had just been set in December, so Iowa scratch sales have now set records for three months in a row. You’ve also given $2 Powerball a good reception since its January debut. Powerball sales saw a double-digit increase in February.

So what do we think is contributing to these strong numbers? It’s several things, actually. We’ve got a strong mix of games and themes out there; there continue to be a lot of big winners here in Iowa, including three players who have claimed $1 million prizes so far this calendar year; the entry numbers tell us you’ve enjoyed our latest promotions (Don’t forget to get in on the “Warehouse Dash” right now!); and you know that when you buy a lottery ticket, some of the money you spend goes to good causes, like Iowa veterans and their families through the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund.

Your Chance To Be In The Warehouse Dash

I am so excited to tell you about our new promotion that just kicked off at noon today. Six Iowa Lottery players will get the chance to make what may be the most lucrative run of their lives in the Warehouse Dash promo. And plus, they’ll have a ton of fun, just like the folks in the video above.

Here’s how it works: We’ll be giving the promotion’s six winners the chance to go to the warehouse that supplies all of the items in our VIP Club store, including televisions and other electronics, housewares, jewelry, camping gear, sporting equipment and more. The six contestants will each get to choose a partner for a weekend getaway to Chicago, where they’ll go on a 90-second dash through the prize warehouse to grab as much top-brand merchandise as they can.

We anticipate that the winners will walk away with thousands of dollars in prizes. So now’s the time to start thinking about your perfect partner and doing some calisthenics to get ready!

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of our VIP Club. On the ticket-entry page at www.ialotteryvip.com, you’ll be asked to enter the 10-digit entry number from the front of a non-winning $10 “Did I Win?” instant-scratch ticket along with the ticket number from the back. You’ll need to use a different non-winning Did I Win ticket for each entry.