Lottery win makes holidays a lot brighter for Winfield woman

DES MOINES ? Word of a southeastern Iowa woman?s big lottery win traveled quickly.

Sheila Parsons of Winfield purchased a ?Gold Miner? scratch ticket Dec. 19 at The Countreestore, 2455 120th St., Winfield, and ended up winning one of the game?s $30,000 top prizes.

?I think a lot of people in Winfield know, it got out fast,? Parsons said.

The 49-year-old claimed her prize the same day at the lottery?s regional office in Cedar Rapids. She claimed the 11th of 12 top prizes of $30,000 available in the game.

Parsons said she was familiar with the game and was very confident that she?d won a big prize, but she needed someone else to double-check her work.

?I had my husband check it probably three times to make sure I wasn?t crazy or something,? she said.

Parson, who works at Casey?s in Winfield, said her lottery winnings will be used to pay bills and buy holiday gifts.

Gold Miner is a $3 scratch game. Players reveal the 22 ?your symbols? and then scratch all the matching symbols in the five games on each ticket. If he or she matches all the symbols on any one horizontal line in any game, they win the corresponding prize for that line. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.84.

One top prize of $30,000 is still up for grabs in Gold Miner, as well as six prizes of $1,000, seven prizes of $500, 23 prizes of $200 and 27 prizes of $100.

Since the lottery?s start in 1985, its players have won more than $3.3 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.