News : Van Horne man buys $30K winning lottery ticket in Dyersville

Craig Ivester of Van Horne won $30,000 in the Iowa Lottery 'Crossword' game.

A last-minute stop was very lucky for an eastern Iowa man, who won a $30,000 top prize on an instant-scratch ticket.

Craig Ivester of Van Horne, a driver sales representative, decided to take a break May 7 at Kwik Stop, 740 18th Ave. SW in Dyersville. While he was there he purchased a couple of “Crossword” tickets so that he and his wife, Jodi, could scratch them when he got home.

“The next morning we got up and scratched our tickets and low and behold I hit it,” Ivester said. “I didn’t believe it, but I hit it.”

Ivester ended up winning the 20th of 86 top prizes of $30,000 available in the Crossword game. He claimed his prize Thursday at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids.

Ivester said he was joking recently with his co-workers that he was going to win a big lottery prize in the near future.

“I’ve been saying I’m going to hit a jackpot here, and this is a prelude to the big one I guess,” he said.

The 44-year-old said his lottery winnings will be used to buy a new roof for his home and pay for an upcoming vacation.

Crossword is a $3 scratch game. Players win a prize by uncovering at least three complete words in the ticket’s puzzle. If a player uncovers 10 words, he/she wins $30,000. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.82.

Sixty-three top prizes of $30,000 are still up for grabs in Crossword (game #805), as well as 92 prizes of $3,000 and thousands of prizes of $300 and $100.

Since the lottery’s start in 1985, its players have won more than $3.2 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.5 billion for the state programs that benefit all Iowans.

Today, lottery proceeds in Iowa have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans, 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.