The Iowa Lottery is looking for the holders of two Powerball tickets worth a combined $100,000 which will expire soon.
Spokesperson Mary Neubauer says the tickets were purchased at a Casey’s in Council Bluffs and a Kum & Go in Stuart. “They each matched for the white balls and the red Powerball on the night of their drawing to win at that price level. And then they’ve been sitting out there for months,” she says.
The Council Bluffs ticket was purchased for the drawing on July 21st, 2021. “That Council Bluffs prize will expire at the close of business on July 21st of this year, if it isn’t claimed by then at an Iowa Lottery office,” Neubauer says. The person who bought the winning ticket in Stuart has more time to claim the prize. “That was for the Powerball drawing on October 23red of 2021. It will expire at the close of business on October 24th of this year if it isn’t claimed in time at a lottery office,” she says.
Neubauer says it is a little unusual to have two prizes of this size go unclaimed. “You know, $50,000 is a significant amount of money — and usually, people are watching for prizes like that — and they’re paying attention to prizes like that,” according to Neubauer. “But every once in a while, maybe once a year, we’ll see a prize of this level that goes unclaimed, but we certainly want to do everything we can to find these winners.”
Neubauer says they’ve done some analysis on the amount of time it takes for someone to bring in a winning ticket. “We found out that of the prizes that are claimed, nearly all of them are claimed within the first six months after the drawing,” she says. “Less than three percent of the prizes from those drawings were claimed after that point.”
You have one year from the drawing to collect any prizes from Iowa Lottery tickets. The prizes that expire without being claimed, go back into the prize pools for future games and promotions.