CLIVE, Iowa, Aug. 25, 2017 – A Davenport man said he checked his winning lottery ticket several times before he started to celebrate.
Kevin Sickler claimed a progressive jackpot of $23,358.90 in the Iowa Lottery’s “Jumbo Bucks Progressive” InstaPlay game, a $5 ticket. InstaPlay is a new lottery product, known as a scratchless scratch ticket.
Sickler, 55, said he was on his way home from work Tuesday morning and stopped at Casey’s, 3902 State St. in Bettendorf. While he was there, he bought a Jumbo Bucks Progressive ticket and ended up winning the game’s progressive jackpot.
“I had to look at the ticket at least five or six times before I realized what I’d done,” Sickler told lottery employees the same day as he claimed his prize at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids.
Sickler said he always dreamed of winning the lottery, but he never thought his dream would come true.
“When you least expect it, it will happen,” he said.
He said he plans to use a portion of his winnings to take a vacation and save the rest.
InstaPlay combines features from instant-scratch and lotto games and gives players a new option with no numbers to pick, playslips to fill out or wait for a drawing. InstaPlay tickets are “scratchless” because they have no security coating that needs to be removed to determine the prize won. And rather than having supplies of tickets printed in advance like those in traditional scratch and pull-tab games, InstaPlay tickets are printed on demand from the lottery terminal, as in lotto games like Powerball® and Mega Millions®. But the play style of InstaPlay tickets is similar to that of scratch tickets, with symbols and numbers that need to match in order to win a prize.
InstaPlay games range in price from $1 to $5. More details about how to play these games and the number of prizes still up for grabs in them can be found on the Iowa Lottery’s website, www.ialottery.com.
