$10,000 Lottery Win Leads To Sleepless Night For Jackson County Woman
Yolanda Bennett Claims Big Prize In '$100,000 Mega Crossword' Game
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CLIVE, Iowa — A Jackson County woman was too excited to sleep after she won a $10,000 lottery prize.
"Of course, I had a hard time sleeping that night," Yolanda Bennett said on Tuesday as she claimed her prize at the Iowa Lottery's Cedar Rapids regional office. "It was like I couldn't believe it. I kept looking at the ticket, going, 'I can't believe I won $10,000!'"
Bennett, 55, of Maquoketa, won the 72nd prize of $10,000 in the "$100,000 Mega Crossword" scratch game. Her boyfriend purchased a handful of tickets for her at Kwik Star, 917 W. Platt St. in Maquoketa.
"He bought me some on a Tuesday night last week and I didn't get a chance to scratch them," she said. "I came home from work the next day and they were laying there. I decided to scratch them off."
Bennett thought she'd won $100 on her lucky ticket until she scanned it with the Iowa Lottery mobile app and realized her prize was much larger.
"I was in shock," she said. "I was just like, 'There's no way!' So I cleared it and I scanned it like three more times."
She called her boyfriend right away, but he refused to believe her until she sent him a screenshot of the prize amount.
"He's like, 'Don't you dare lie to me!'" Bennett recalled with a laugh. "I told him, 'I'm not lying!'"
Bennett said she has several plans for her winnings.
"I have a house that I'm in the process of fixing up to sell, so I'll probably put some of it toward that," she said. "And then for the rest of it, my grandkids are coming up for two weeks at the end of June for vacation, so I'm pretty sure we're going to have a good one."
The $100,000 Mega Crossword game is a $10 scratch game that features overall odds of 1 in 3.30, 38 top prizes of $100,000 and 76 prizes of $10,000. For more information about this game, and the number of prizes still available, visit www.ialottery.com.
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