Board votes to allow shorter prize-claim deadline
By Kate Northrop
The Iowa Lottery Board voted last Tuesday to reduce the prize-claim period for four multi-state games in the state.
Lottery players in Iowa will have a shorter amount of time to claim prizes for some of the games offered by the Iowa Lottery.
Currently, the Iowa Lottery allows prize winners to claim their winnings within 365 days from the date of the drawing. Soon, that time window will be reduced to 180 days from the date of the drawing for Powerball, Mega Millions, Lucky for Life, and Lotto America.
The Lottery Board voted unanimously to enact the change, but it will not take effect "for some months," the Lottery said. Before the adjustment, the Lottery must complete testing on its statewide gaming system. As of now, the new claims deadline is expected to go into effect in the first quarter of 2023.
"The change has no monetary benefit to the Iowa Lottery," the Lottery said in a press release yesterday. "Under state law, the money from prizes that expire in Iowa without being claimed will continue to go back to players through the lottery's prize pools for future games and promotions."
In the past three years, the annual total amount of unclaimed, expired prizes ranged between $1.3 million and $1.7 million.
Part of the motivation for the change was fueled by an internal study conducted by the Lottery on a sampling of recent drawings for the four aforementioned multi-state games, which found that a "vast majority" of claims occurred within a six-month period. Less than 3 percent of prizes from those drawings were claimed after 180 days, their research revealed.
There are currently 14 states, including Iowa, that abide by a 365-day claims period, whereas 33 other state lotteries require prizes to be claimed within 180 days or six months (182 days).
Another reason for the change was that players might unintentionally throw away, damage, or lose a ticket as more time goes on.
"Time also is an important consideration from a security perspective," the Lottery explained. "As time passes, it becomes more difficult for those involved to accurately recall the details of a ticket purchase and provide that information to the Iowa Lottery for verification purposes."
The claim period for other games, such as in-state games like Pick 3 and Pick 4, scratch-off tickets, pull-tab games, and InstaPlay will remain unchanged at 90 days from the date of the drawing.
It may sound harsh, but that actually makes sense. Who needs a whole year to come pick up a check.? Unless you are coming from Mars, 6 months is plenty of time. Even the people who win hundreds of millions of dollars, usually show up with their lawyers within a couple of months, sometimes within a couple of weeks. I may be wrong but I seem to remember Kate telling us that "Lottery Crook" Eddie Tipton waited to the very last day. And we all know what he was up to. No thanks.
"The change has no monetary benefit to the Iowa Lottery," the Lottery said in a press release yesterday.
Well, it certainly gives no monetary benefit to the players.
Eddie's New York lawyer waiting until the last hour caused red flags everywhere in the office.
The time limit for claiming any of the multiple state jackpots should be uniform and so should anonymity.
One of the reasons lottery tickets go unclaimed. Players get caught up in the moment of purchasing tickets, then become careless with the tickets, mis place them,, forget to check them,, meanwhile the clock is ticking... What they should do is right where the put that message on the ticket, it should state" This ticket must be redeemed by(insert date) 180 days from the date of purchase.
As long as they then allow anonymous claims on those games also!
I do not know of anyone who has all their legal ducks in a row for a big jackpot claim.
I know if it were anonymous Multi State claims here I would not what 6 Minutes to go claim a prize let alone 6 months. I would contact a lawyer and an a tax guy on my way to Lansing if the Multi State Claims were anonymous here.
Haha, this rule is not about the big wins really. Yes, it affects those big wins obviously, but it is most targeted towards the small amounts like $2.
When I was buying tickets, while travelling in other states, if it turned out that I won $2 or something that small, I never turned up to claim that ticket. Because I never know when I would end up in that state again and obviously, most likely I'll forget about that ticket by that time.
There probably been tons of times when I didn't claim my $2 even in my own state, simply because once I knew that the ticket is not a big winner, I won't care much for it and may simply lose it.
Meanwhile, the lottery has to wait for each $2 to be claimed. Well, for me it is it is $2, but for them it is millions sitting there and waiting.
I say: its their business to sit and wait till I decide that I want my $2 or not. The reason they are doing this is simple, someone decided that he/she is entitled to these monies earlier to use them. When they say that they don't gain anything from it, they actually do. I'm sure money shortage is the reason.
The claim by time frame is in fine print on the back of the ticket.
""The change has no monetary benefit to the Iowa Lottery," "
It frees up prize money for other games, and we all know advertising more money an boost sales. It might not be huge, but it sure sounds like a monetary benefit to me.
"it certainly gives no monetary benefit to the players. "
But, but, but ... it might make players less likely to lose their tickets. I'm willing to believe that there's a small possibility that one in a great while somebody might want to put off claiming the ticket and in the extra 6 months they've got more time to forget the hid it in a suitcase. What I find extremely hard to believe is that sort of thing being more common than things like people forgetting they bought a ticket and stumbling across it when their car is finally so messy that they do a thorough cleaning job. If they spread the claim that this benefits players in any way across the state it should do wonders for their corn crop.
Well looks like the greedy hypocritical brain dead hating red hatter misspelled card carrying oppression and fascist loving freedom hating socialist hating welfare taking members of the gqp cult idiots want to steal even more money from public schools.
I can not wait to see how they falsely blame the dems for this.