CLIVE, Iowa — A Quad-Cities man claimed a $1 million Mega Millions® prize on Monday that he won last month when he stopped for coffee and a snack at a central-Iowa convenience store.
“It just happened to be the right one, I guess,” Danny Lovett said with a laugh as he claimed his prize at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive. “So, it worked out for me.”
Lovett, 60, of East Moline, Illinois, drives a truck on a route from Davenport to Des Moines. He said that the Kum & Go store at 1200 N Walnut St. in Colfax is a regular stop for him during his drive. He won his prize in the Mega Millions drawing on January 15, but didn’t check his ticket until a few days later. Then with the frigid winter weather that Iowa and the rest of the Midwest have faced over the past couple weeks, Lovett said he waited until the weather improved a bit to head to the lottery to claim his prize.
As he claimed his prize, he recalled looking at his ticket and realizing he’d matched the first five numbers in the Mega Millions drawing.
“You count and you count and you look and it’s like, ‘There’s no way!’” Lovett said. “Then you wake people up out of bed so they can see, too. It’s a great thing.”
Lovett said he plans to use his winnings to buy a house, put a big chunk away for retirement, help his family, and buy a car he’s wanted for decades: a 1972 Ford® Mustang Fastback.
“I’m going to get right on the internet when I leave here,” he said. “It’s just a car I’ve always wanted since I was a kid and never could have one. Now I can have one!”
Lovett’s ticket was one of two in the country to win a $1 million prize in the January 15 Mega Millions drawing. The other was purchased in California. Lovett came within one number of having at least a share of that night’s $55 million jackpot, matching the first five numbers but missing the Mega Ball. No one matched all six numbers to win the jackpot, so the big prize continued to climb.
That night’s winning numbers were: 29-52-58-60-62 and Mega Ball 7. The Megaplier®number was 2.
Kum & Go received a $1,000 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the $1 million-winning ticket at one of its stores.
Lovett’s ticket was the second purchased at the Colfax store to win a $1 million prize in about a year. George Dickerson of Colfax claimed a $1 million Powerball® prize in January 2018 with a ticket he bought at that same Kum & Go store. He said at the time that freezing weather almost made him stay home, but he decided to brave the cold and went out to buy tickets just a few minutes before the sales cut-off time for the Powerball drawing on December 30, 2017.
Players in $2 Mega Millions choose their first five numbers from a pool of 70, and another number — called the Mega Ball — from a separate pool of 25. The Megaplier option is available for an extra $1 per play. The game’s jackpot starts at $40 million and grows by at least $5 million with each drawing until it is won.
Powerball and Mega Millions are both lotto games with jackpot prizes that have climbed into the hundreds of millions of dollars. But while Powerball's drawings are on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the Mega Millions drawings are on Tuesdays and Fridays.
About the Iowa Lottery: Since the lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $4.2 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.9 billion for state programs. Today, lottery proceeds have three main purposes in Iowa. They provide support for our state's veterans and their families through the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund; help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund; and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools.
