Webster County Man Shocked By $500,000 Lottery Win
Douglas Langenwalter Wins Top Prize in "$500,000 CA$H" Game
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CLIVE, Iowa — A Webster County man who won a $500,000 lottery prize said his celebration at a local supermarket drew attention.
"Everybody in the store looked at me, and I hollered, 'I just won a half-million dollars!'" Douglas Langenwalter recalled with a laugh. "I signed the ticket right away and we got the heck out of there."
Langenwalter, 58, of Badger, won the sixth top prize in the Iowa Lottery's "$500,000 CA$H" scratch game. He purchased his winning ticket at Fareway, 1231 First Ave. S. in Fort Dodge.
After buying the ticket, he scratched off the QR code and asked the employee to check the ticket on the store's lottery terminal. She came back with a winner claim form and told him he needed to drive to Clive to claim his prize at lottery headquarters.
"My wife has the lottery app on her phone, so she scanned it and it said $500,000," Langenwalter said. "She thought it was an error, so she scanned it again. Neither one of us, until we got down here and had the check in hand, believed it."
Amid the excitement of his huge win, Langenwalter said he had a difficult time sleeping that night.
"Not a wink, up all night long," he said. "I was just excited but yet scared, because I didn't know if it was really true."
But after claiming his prize Thursday at lottery headquarters in Clive, both he and his wife were starting to relax. Langenwalter said he plans to save and invest his winnings.
The $500,000 CA$H game is a $50 scratch game that features prizes ranging from $50 up to $500,000. Players try to match numbers in the playing area on tickets in the game to win a prize. The game has overall odds of winning of 1 in 3.09. For more information about this game, and the number of prizes still available, visit www.ialottery.com.
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