Defying incredible odds, two top prize-winning tickets were sold at the same Davenport convenience store for last night’s Iowa $100,000 Cash Game. The same five numbers were picked on two separate tickets and both matched the winning numbers. Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer likens it to lightning striking the same spot twice.
Neubauer says, "This has happened just a couple of times over the years and generally what has happened is that maybe there was family miscommunication where the husband bought a ticket and the wife didn’t know that the husband bought a ticket so she bought one, too." While the odds are highly stacked against this happening, she says there’s nothing suspicious about the double-win in Davenport.
"We’ve checked out the tickets," Neubauer says. "They were both tickets that were made with a play slip so these aren’t just easy pick tickets. It appears to be players who meant to buy these tickets. There’s nothing wrong, it’s just a really interesting situation." The tickets were both sold at the Hawkeye Convenience store in the 68-hundred block of Northwest Boulevard in Davenport. Neubauer says in this game, players pick five numbers between 1 and 35.
The winning numbers were 3, 7, 12, 16 and 22, which she says might be birthdays, anniversaries or other important dates. "We’ll see," Neubauer says. "It’s going to be fun to meet whoever has these tickets." The odds of matching all five numbers in the game are one in more than 324,000.