ialottery blog

Player Mail: Why Doesn’t That Store Sell Tickets All The Time?

A man on Facebook reached out to us this month with a question about the hours that retail locations sell lottery tickets, and specifically, whether stores are required to sell lottery products at any time they are open for business. The quick answer is we have no such requirement, for a variety of real-world reasons.

The man said he had gone to a store in central Iowa that stopped selling lottery products at 10 p.m. even though the location didn’t close until 11 p.m. The man wanted to know if it was okay for the store to do that. It is perfectly okay for a business to set the hours it will sell the products it offers, and we understand that there are business factors behind that decision.

At the store the man contacted us about, the location stops selling lottery tickets at 10 p.m. each night so employees can begin the accounting work and other procedures they need to complete before the store can close for the night at 11 p.m. While we understand that everyone wants convenience as much as possible, the store clerks have check lists they need to complete each night and only so much time to do that work. If that means they need to stop selling lottery products an hour before close to ensure everything balances for the night, that’s perfectly understandable.

We were able to give the man a list of several other businesses in the same city that also sell lottery tickets, many of which are open for business 24 hours and could likely accommodate his schedule to buy lottery tickets after 10 p.m.

If you’re looking for retail locations in a certain area that sell lottery tickets, remember that you can use the “Find a Retailer” section of our website to search by city or zip code.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes! 'Colossal Crossword' Is Now Available Statewide

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

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

Thank you for checking out the new game!

Retailers Get In On The Winner Celebrations, Too!

Meeting our winners is a time to celebrate here at the lottery, and it’s always fun to hear their stories about how they won, whether anyone believed them at first and what they plan to do with their prize money. But we also celebrate with the retail locations that sell the winning tickets because it’s a big event for them, too!

Here’s one of our most recent examples: We got to make a big sign that has since gone up inside Smokin’ Joes in North Liberty. This shot is of Melissa, the store manager, when we gave her the sign.

You may recall that Smokin’ Joe’s is the spot where Karl Krumbholz of Cedar Rapids bought his ticket that won the $2 million Powerball® prize he claimed on St. Patrick’s Day. Karl is a regular customer at the store and Melissa sold him his winning ticket!

The sign is a nice reminder that luck hit at that store. (And in addition to its new sign, Smokin’ Joe’s got a $2,000 bonus from the lottery for selling the $2 million-winning ticket.)

Congrats again to Karl and Smokin’ Joe’s! What a fun story.

Player Mail: Why Are Your Lottery Terminals Down Each Night?

Here’s a great question that came our way on Facebook, in case you’ve ever wondered the same thing: Why DO we shut down our lottery terminals in the middle of the night? (Answer: It’s for security and accounting purposes.)

If you’re not up late at night/early in the morning, you may never have noticed it, but every night, the Iowa Lottery terminals and self-checkers in about 2,400 retail locations statewide are shut down for a period of time. That’s for a few different reasons, chief among them security and accounting concerns.

Our lottery terminals close for business at midnight. They’re offline for about 30 minutes (sometimes a little longer) and then they come back up to start the next business day. Shutting down our equipment ends a particular day’s business cycle so we can total up sales, account for all lottery plays, and run maintenance and updates on the lottery terminals themselves. That work is an important part of the procedures we follow to ensure the security and integrity of lottery games.

In retail locations that aren’t open 24 hours, customers likely never notice the down time because the business is closed when it occurs. Staffers at the business just power up the lottery terminal when the location opens the next morning.

In businesses that are open 24 hours, customers and staff will see that the lottery terminal is offline for a little while each night. That’s been a standard procedure ever since the Iowa Lottery’s started back in 1985. The good news is that as computers have become more powerful through the years, the down time for our equipment each night has gotten much shorter. Years ago, lottery terminals were offline for a few hours each night, if not longer.

If you happen to be in a retail location when the lottery terminal is offline, please know that we’ll have things back up and running just as soon as we can. We know you want to play the lottery and we want to do business with you!

Can I Claim A Ticket From Another State In Iowa?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Takin' It To The Streets

We blogged last month about our 30th anniversary, and now we’re taking the celebration to the streets!

We’ll hold 30 events across Iowa this summer to spread the fun and thank you for being part of what makes our state so great! Check out the list of events we keep on our promotions page to see where we’ll head next. We’ll add more events as the summer goes along, so if you don’t see a stop in your area yet, check back. We may get it on the list.

We’ll have a lottery tent at most of these events, so if you find the tent like you see here, you’re probably in the right place!

Talk About Good Luck On Friday The 13th!

Who said Friday the 13th is unlucky? Someone who bought a ticket in northwest Iowa ended up winning a $100,000 prize today in a lotto drawing.

It happened in the midday All or Nothing drawing. A ticket purchased at Casey’s, 101 Fifth Ave. SW in Le Mars, matched all 12 numbers to win the game’s top prize of $100,000. The winning numbers in the drawing were: 1-5-7-8-9-14-15-16-17-20-21-23.

The lucky winner or winners can claim the prize at one of the Iowa Lottery’s offices – either at its headquarters in Clive or one of its regional offices in Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Mason City or Storm Lake.

This is the second time in less than a month that Iowa has had a top prize winner in the joint Iowa-Minnesota lotto game. Douglas Whitney of Mount Vernon won All or Nothing’s $100,000 top prize in the Feb. 18 midday drawing by matching all 12 numbers drawn.

Since the game’s debut in January last year, there have been eight $100,000 top prize winners overall, including five in Iowa.

Where Can I Find My Favorite Game?

Here’s an interesting question we just got in an email – and the answer we sent in reply. The man raises a really good point, it’s just not something we can accurately make available right now. But it’s something we’ll keep working on!

A man named Alex emailed us with this question: “Are there any publicly available records of which scratch tickets are currently stocked by retailers? I am an occasional instant game player who will pick up a few tickets when I pass through Iowa. I enjoy playing the $3 Jumble game, but have not seen many in stores recently. Your website indicates there are several top prizes remaining for this game, so I am curious as to where these tickets are currently being sold.”

Now there’s a guy who likes to be thorough in his planning! And we appreciate that.

If you’ve done your homework like Alex, you already know there’s a page on our website where you can look up the retailers in a particular area that sell lottery tickets. You can search for them by zip code or city. But we don’t have the ability in real time to list the games available at a particular location, and we think anything less would likely just cause more headaches than good, so we haven’t gone there.

There are identifying numbers on each lottery ticket that tell us, for example, when that ticket has been delivered to a particular location, when it was sold and when it was cashed. But we can’t see in real time when that location may have run out of tickets in that game, or if that store has decided to delay adding a particular game to its mix, which is a business decision it certainly can make.

If there’s a game you’re looking for like Alex was, we can always check with individual retail locations to see if they’ve got it available. We were able to pinpoint some locations for Alex that had the Jumble scratch game in the area he was visiting, so now he’ll be able to find them.

Great question, Alex, and good luck with your Iowa tickets!