WAPELLO MAN DISCOVERS $10,000 WIN
AFTER FORGETTING ABOUT TICKET

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Jim Connolly Claims $10,000 Prize from September 30 Powerball® Drawing

DES MOINES, Iowa – After forgetting he purchased a lottery ticket, a Wapello man found his ticket and discovered he had won a $10,000 Powerball prize!

Jim Connolly, 58, won big in the September 30 Powerball drawing.

"I had to sit at the kitchen table and look at it over and over and when I figured out how much it was I must've said $10,000 over 10,000 times! I could hardly get up to do anything else the rest of the day," Connolly said.

Connolly's wife Judy was home when he discovered the win. He said while he was still in the house double-checking his numbers, his wife was on the phone with their family telling them about the win.

"We were just kind of celebrating there for a while!" he said.

The first person Connolly called was his son, who jokingly asked his father to put the check in his name.

"I said no, that isn't going to happen!" Connolly said.

He said he didn't sleep well over the weekend and still didn't really believe he had won until he took the ticket into a retailer to have it checked.

"I was on cloud nine. I wanted to go celebrate and go buy stuff, but I said to myself, 'Well, you’ve got to think about this for a while,'" he said.

The store manager told Connolly they hadn't had a big winning ticket sold at their store yet, so they were very excited. Connolly purchased his winning ticket at Newport Junction, 13410 State Highway 78 in Wapello.

Connolly said he plans to use his winnings to put in a new driveway and pay bills. He is currently employed with Hawkeye Group in Mediapolis.

He claimed his ticket Tuesday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids.

The winning numbers on September 30 were 41-42-52-54-57 and Powerball 30. The Power Play multiplier was 3. Connolly matched four of the first five numbers drawn and the Powerball to win a $10,000 prize. Had he added the Power Play® to his ticket, Connolly would have multiplied his $10,000 win by three and won a total of $30,000.

Players can increase their prizes with the Power Play (except the jackpot) up to five times. The cost is $1 per play. The Power Play number, 2 through 5, is chosen at the beginning of the drawing indicating the amount prizes (except the jackpot) will be multiplied if that number is drawn.

For players who choose the Power Play and match five white balls (regularly a $200,000 prize), the multiplier will always be 5, so those players would win an instant $1 million.

Winning numbers may be checked at the lottery Web site at www.ialottery.com or through the winning numbers' hot line at (515) 323-4633. Winning numbers may also be checked with lottery retail outlets or by calling the lottery at (515) 725-7900 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Players may visit the Iowa Lottery at 2323 Grand Ave. in Des Moines or go to one of the lottery's regional offices in Council Bluffs, Storm Lake, Mason City or Cedar Rapids to claim prizes.

Since the Iowa Lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $2.4 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised nearly $1.2 billion for state programs.