10
Apr
Lucky Iowa Resident Claims $40 Million Jackpot from April 1 Win
Lape had a hard time believing his incredible luck was real, and at first, he thought it was a joke. "I laughed. I thought it was April Fools," he recalled. It was only when he took his winning ticket to the store where he bought it and had it checked on the lottery terminal that he started to believe the news. "I had already signed it, so I handed it to her," Lape said. "She scanned it and then smiled and said, ‘You are the winner!’”After claiming his prize at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive, Lape chose to receive his winnings in the lump-sum option of $21.28 million. He said he planned to invest his winnings so that the money could help his family for generations to come. He also plans to make donations to organizations that benefit children with medical issues, specifically the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City, and Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines.
Lape's jackpot-winning ticket matched all six numbers in the April 1 Lotto America drawing: 2-38-43-46-51 and Star Ball 7. The jackpot that night was a record for the Lotto America game. The Lotto America jackpot had been growing since July 2021. Before this latest run, the game's jackpot record was a $22.82 million prize won in March 2018 by a Minnesota family. Lape said he likes to play Lotto America because it offers better odds of winning than the larger multi-state games, Powerball and Mega Millions.
One of the first people Lape shared his jackpot-winning news with was Randy Davis, his best friend since childhood. Davis, who was with Lape for moral support as he claimed his prize, said he also initially didn’t believe the news. "I just didn't believe him at first. I didn't believe him that Sunday night until the next morning," Davis said. "And I started to believe him when I started seeing some things online. And he stuck to the story, so I thought, ‘Well, it might be true!’”
Before he won the jackpot, Lape was in the process of buying the home of his long-time girlfriend who passed away in August 2022. He said that winning the lottery will mean he can pay for the house as well as the repairs and updates it needs. "Her sons asked me if I really wanted the house now, and I said, ‘Yeah!’” Lape recalled.
Lape bought his jackpot-winning ticket at Eichman’s, a restaurant and convenience store in Dubuque that is a regular stop for him. Eichman’s will receive a $5,000 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the jackpot-winning Lotto America ticket.
The Lotto America game costs $1 to play and has drawings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, just like Powerball. Players choose five numbers from a pool of 52 and another number, called the Star Ball, from a pool of 10. Players who match all six numbers in a drawing win the game’s jackpot. The odds of winning the jackpot in Lotto America are around 1 in 26 million, compared to odds of about 1 in 292.2 million of winning the Powerball jackpot and about 1 in 302.6 million of winning the Mega Millions jackpot.
Since the Iowa Lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $5.4 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $2.3 billion for state programs
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