24 PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026 Iowa Lottery at 40: Scratching off $6.1B in prizes since 1985 — continued from page 15 “I think Iowans are well aware of the situation my predecessor had to navigate,” Strawn said. “They did everything right in catching someone who was attempting to defraud the lottery. If you think about what makes a lottery product distinct from arguably any other product on the shelf, it is a product that is inherently based on trust, and the minute a player, a consumer, doesn’t believe they have a fair opportunity to win a prize in that game, your entire product category is done. “There’s the importance of not just maintaining operational security and integrity of lottery drawings and lottery products, not just making sure that happens internally, but making sure lottery leaders are telling that story to players, to stakeholders, to the beneficiaries that rely on lottery proceeds. That is our currency, that we have to be able to make sure the games remain fair, the games remain honest, because at the end of the day, it’s causes like the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund that are relying on us to do that.” Strawn said he doesn’t have any pro tips about which lottery games to buy and from what stores, because he doesn’t know. When a pallet of tickets arrives at the lottery’s warehouse, staff do not know what prizes are embedded into those tickets. “All that is completely randomized; we do not know how many top prizes are seeded into a game. We don’t know where in the stack they are. We have no visibility whatsoever whether those top prizes are still in the warehouse, or whether they’re sitting in a dispenser waiting for an Iowan to come in and have a great day,” he said. Iowa Lottery uses a closed loop system that has no connectivity to the internet. A sophisticated random number generator is used for second-chance drawings that take place at the Lottery headquarters. “We have a mirroring system, our [Internal Control System] ICS system that will make sure everything balances out, that there are no discrepancies in bets,” he said. “There is no longer any old-school ball drawing equipment that is used at the Iowa Lottery.” When a prize winner visits the lottery headquarters to collect, their name is cross-checked against state data to see if they have any outstanding debts, like unpaid child support, before they receive the money. Winners still receive prize money by check; mobile payment services such as Venmo are not used. For many years, lottery winners sent their winning tickets by postal mail to the Iowa Lottery headquarters, and lottery staff would send the prize money back to the winner. Technology updates allow lottery players to check their tickets at the retailer, or on an app, to see if they won and to confirm the prize amount. Amounts less than $600 can be redeemed at the retailer. This eliminates much of the postal mail that the lottery office handled, as well as the workload on retailers and others. “I have heard from my predecessors about these stacks and stacks of tickets that were mailed in,” he said. “Think of the inefficiency involved in processing those claims, and it isn’t just the convenience for players in processing those claims, but one benefit of technology is it provides greater protection to both lottery players and actually lottery retailers.” Technology upgrades have also allowed for second-chance drawings. Players take codes on non-winning tickets and enter them online to win alternate prizes, such as concert tickets. An economic indicator Iowa Lottery sales were down last fiscal year. Strawn said lottery sales are dependent on jackpot totals. The volatility of multistate jackpot games like Powerball or Mega Millions largely dictate sales. If the prize doesn’t meet a high enough threshold, people don’t buy in. “Our product portfolio, it ebbs and flows in a given year, driven largely by the volatility in Powerball or Mega Millions sales,” he said. “It’s a product that we don’t really have much ability to control sales on because we are to some degree at the mercy of the odds and whether that jackpot grows. Take a year like last fiscal year [2023-2024], where we saw five Powerball or Mega Millions jackpots that exceeded $1 billion for a top prize. During the fiscal year that just closed [2024-2025], we had one [major jackpot] and it was just after the holidays toward the close of calendar year 2024. Because of that disparity, year-over-year, in the size of jackpots, our Powerball sales were down over 50%. Unlike other products, you can’t drive sales simply with marketing and promotions alone. It’s wild to me that for many consumers and players, a $200 million jackpot, or a $400 million jackpot, isn’t enough for that $2 Powerball purchase.” Lottery sales can serve as an economic indicator, he said, because as gas prices go up, ticket sales come down. “There’s a few things that we keep an eye on as we were putting our budget forecast together, and traditionally, one of those has been gas prices,” Strawn said. “A few years ago, $4 seemed to be the threshold when you see a significant impact on lottery revenues, and, more specifically, scratch tickets. Maybe you’re going in and you’re filling up the tank, you’re grabbing a slice of pizza, a fountain pop, and maybe a $5 scratch ticket. That type of purchase we saw was the one that was most affected when you see $4 a gallon and then they stop buying the ticket.” World Lottery Association Responsible gambling practices are a frequent part of the conversation at the Iowa Lottery. The organization has an extensive responsible gambling plan that falls in line with its overall goals of maintaining integrity, transparency and accountability. The organization recently received a Responsible Gaming Level 2 certification with the World Lottery Association. “If we were in manufacturing, it would be considered an ISO-type standard,” Strawn said. Organizations certified by the World Lottery Association educate players and the public on responsible game play and offer resources when needed. The association sets benchmarks for state lotteries to meet, with the goal of improving responsible gaming practices globally.” In 2023, the Iowa Lottery partnered with Scientific Games to establish a baseline for healthy play. As it looks to the future, Strawn said the Iowa Lottery plans to build on its four decades of experience with continued growth in games, security and public support. n
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