Iowa Lottery

Iowa State Fair marked the beginning of the Iowa Lottery selling tickets to state residents, and for 18 years in a row, the organization made several millionaires. Arguably the biggest winner so far is a ticket sold for the Powerball drawing scheduled for June 13, 2012, with a jackpot of $241 million. The jackpot was won by a single ticket, belonging to 20 cereal factory workers who chose the lump payment and divided the amount into equal shares. Besides the high-powered Mega Millions and Powerball, IA Lottery also runs three other games on its own and the immensely popular Hot Lotto with 15 other states.

Local Iowa Lottery games

Not surprising, the most popular game ran exclusively by Lottery IA is Iowa Pick 3, which has a total of 13 drawings scheduled for each week. There is a single draw taking place on Sunday, but throughout the week, players have two chances to win by hitting the box, straight or the box/straight wager. Players get to choose the three digits that make the potentially winning numbers themselves or allow the quick peek feature to do it on their half.

Iowa Pick 4 is more or less the same, and the fact that players are supposed to indicate a winning number that has four digits instead of three doesn't complicate matters one bit. Front pair or back pair, as well as the box wager, triggers lower payouts, but their chances of success are much better than say a straight or straight/box type of bet. For both games, Iowa Lottery players have a total of 90 days at their disposal to claim the prizes. Otherwise, the winning tickets expire, and the money returns to lottery coffers.

Iowa Cash Game, commonly referred to as the $100,000 Cash Game, is also a daily game with a structure that rings familiar to lotto enthusiasts. Players buy a ticket with five numbers out of a total of 35, and if they match all of them, they will collect a prize worth $100,000. Indicating fewer numbers will still trigger a payout that is significantly less, but the good news is that players can wager on as many as 24 consecutive drawings. These are scheduled for Monday to Saturday at 6:28 PM.

Interstate Iowa Lotto games

Sixteen states have adhered to the famous Hot Lotto game and the fact that it has been around for as long as it did, indicates the fact that enthusiasm didn't dwindle. The jackpot starts at $1 million and has all taxes paid, but if nobody matches the winning numbers, the prize increases by increments of $50,000 each. The standard price of a ticket is one dollar, but one can activate the Sizzler option to triple non-jackpot prizes, and this will set them back an additional one dollar.

Five numbers are extracted from a plastic bubble containing 47 numbers, while the additional number commonly referred to as the Hot Ball is extracted among 19 orange numbers. Until May 12, 2030, players got to choose between the annuity option and the lump payment, but only the second is still standing.

This year, Iowa Powerball celebrated 15 years of existence as Iowa State Lottery introduced it in 1998, six years after it was announced nationwide. As stated above, Iowa Powerball made 20 millionaires in one shot a couple of years ago, but many more have won a multitude of prizes since then.

A record number of tickets were sold for the Iowa Mega Millions a few weeks ago when the jackpot promises to set a new record, and statistics show that the sales have been on the rise since February 2, 2010, when the first drawing took place. No major winners emerged in the Iowa Mega Millions Lottery so far, but many players scooped a lower tier prize.