Iowa Lottery History
Legislation creating Iowa's lottery was signed into law in April 1985; the Lottery began sales on August 22, 1985, with a kickoff celebration at the Iowa State Fair.
The first product sold by the Iowa Lottery was an instant-scratch game called Scratch, Match and Win; players bought more than 6.4 million tickets during its first week.
The Iowa Lottery has raised more than $1.1 billion for programs (reaching $1 billion in March 2006) while awarding more than $2.2 billion in prizes. .
The Lottery sells tickets in three general categories: instant-scratch, pull-tab and online games. Lottery products are sold at more than 2,500 retail locations.
The Iowa Lottery has over 100 employees who work at its headquarters in Des Moines and its regional offices in Council Bluffs, Storm Lake, Mason City, and Cedar Rapids.
Unlike most US lotteries, the minimum age to buy tickets is 21. (Iowa was the first jurisdiction to raise its minimum age for buying tickets from 18, in 1994.)
In September 2007, the Iowa Lottery (along with the Kansas Lottery) began the first US multi-jurisdictional scratch game, Midwest Millions.
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