CLIVE, Iowa – The Iowa Lottery’s “Crossword” scratch game has been very good to a Charles City woman who has now claimed two top prizes of $30,000.
Donna Holtz claimed the first of 65 top prizes of $30,000 available in the lottery’s new “Bonus Crossword” scratch game.
Holtz, no stranger to winning lottery prizes, claimed her first $30,000 top prize in a similar version of the Crossword game in 2001.
Holtz said she purchased her latest winning ticket Sunday at Hy-Vee Gas, 1003 Kelly St. in Charles City.
“I didn’t pay any attention. I knew I had quite a few words, but I thought, ‘Oh, it’s probably $100,’” Holtz told lottery employees Monday as she claimed her prize at the lottery’s regional office in Mason City. “So I started counting them and I’m like, ‘Holy cow!’”
Holtz said friends and family members call her lucky, and ask her to buy lottery tickets for them.
“When I buy for other people, they don’t win. I suppose it’s because I’d rather not give them the winners,” Holtz said jokingly.
Holtz said she and her husband, Doug, remodeled their kitchen with the 2001 lottery winnings, and they said they plan to put the most recent lottery winnings toward new windows for their house and a newer vehicle.
Bonus Crossword is a $3 scratch game. Players win a prize by uncovering at least three complete words in the ticket’s puzzle. If a player uncovers 10 words, they win $30,000. Players can also win a prize by uncovering all five letters in the “Bonus Word” prize box. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.55.
Sixty-four top prizes of $30,000 are still up for grabs in Bonus Crossword, as well as 126 prizes of $3,000 and thousands of prizes between $300 and $100.