Davenport Man Claims Prize Of $25,000 A Year For Life
Lucky for Life Prize Is Doug Schlickman's 2nd Big Win Of The Year
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CLIVE, Iowa — A Davenport man was looking forward to having evidence from the Iowa Lottery to prove to his family and friends that he really did win a prize of $25,000 a year for life in the Lucky for Life® game.
"I still think there's a doubt until I come home and I have a check," Doug Schlickman said with a chuckle as he claimed his prize Wednesday at lottery headquarters in Clive.
Schlickman matched the first five numbers but missed the Lucky Ball in Monday night's drawing to win Lucky for Life's second prize of $25,000 a year for life. He bought his winning ticket at Kwik Star, 1225 E. Kimberly Road in Davenport.
It is Iowa's 14th big win in the game since it debuted in January 2016 in our state.
Schlickman, 51, who works as a production control supervisor at John Deere Cylinder Works in the Quad Cities, said he checked his tickets Tuesday morning on the lottery website and first realized that he'd won $4 for matching just the Powerball® in that game's Monday drawing. Then he checked his Lucky for Life tickets.
He said he had three tickets in the game and the numbers on the last one were coming up lucky.
"They were all matching, so of course I had to go back and forth like, 'Wait a minute, 'What?'" he said. "Then I pulled up the lottery app to scan the ticket and was like, 'Oh, wow!'"
Lucky for Life is a $2 game with drawings each night. The game's top two prize levels are described as "lasting as long as you do," meaning that they are truly for life. The minimum guaranteed payout for those two prize levels is 20 years, and there is a lump-sum option for players who would prefer that rather than lifetime annuity payments.
The winning numbers in Monday's Lucky for Life drawing were: 2-12-16-29-40 and Lucky Ball 13. Kwik Star will receive a $500 bonus from the lottery for selling the winning ticket.
Players in Lucky for Life choose five numbers from a pool of 48 for the white balls and one out of 18 numbers for the Lucky Ball. Players can win the game's top prize of $1,000 a day for life by matching all six numbers selected in one of its drawings. The game's second prize – for matching the first five numbers but missing the Lucky Ball – is $25,000 a year for life. Other prize levels in the game range from $3 up to $5,000.
After realizing he'd won, Schlickman sent a text to his wife, Sarah, a nurse practitioner.
"I had asked her on text, 'How does it feel?' And she works in an OR so she said, 'I'm really busy, what are you talking about?'" he recalled. "And I said, 'Well, how does it feel to be debt free?' She just sent me some question marks. And then I took a picture on the Iowa Lottery app of when I scanned it and I sent it to her."
Schlickman said that he and his wife plan to pay off debt, then invest the winnings for their children's college expenses and their own retirement.
"This puts me a couple steps closer to it," he said.
Schlickman's Lucky for Life prize is his second big lottery win of 2022. In January, he won a prize of $12,920.90 in the Cherry Twist Progressive InstaPlay game. Schlickman said he enjoys the anticipation of playing the lottery.
"It's just fun -- the excitement of checking the ticket," he said.
And he said he's not done winning yet, aiming for a Powerball or Mega Millions® jackpot next.
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