News : McNamara wins $25,000 in lottery

Diane McNamara wins big with state lottery

A Benton County woman said she had a family member confirm she won a big lottery prize before she started to celebrate.

Diane McNamara of Norway claimed the 20th of 24 top prizes available in the Iowa Lottery’s “Bingo Boxes” instant-scratch ticket.

The 71-year-old retiree said she purchased her winning ticket several weeks ago at The Depot Express, 117 E. Railroad St. in Norway and forgot about it. She said she scratched off her ticket Jan. 19 and couldn’t believe that she’d won.

“I wrote down all the numbers and I rechecked them,” McNamara told lottery employees Friday as she claimed her prize at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids.

McNamara said she still wasn’t completely sure that she’d won, so she had her granddaughter check it over, and she confirmed that it was a winning ticket.

“If it’s a dream, I hope I don’t wake up,” McNamara said.

McNamara said her lottery winnings will be put toward home repairs.

Bingo Boxes is a $2 scratch game. Players try to win a prize by matching numbers in any complete horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, four corners, an “X” pattern or all four numbers in the shaded box patterns in the play area on each ticket. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.78.

Three top prizes of $25,000 are still up for grabs in Bingo Boxes, as well as 10 prizes of $2,500, eight prizes of $1,000, 34 prizes of $500, 31 prizes of $250 and 153 prizes of $150.

Since the lottery’s start in 1985, its players have won more than $3.3 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.5 billion for the state programs that benefit all Iowans.

Today, lottery proceeds in Iowa have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans, help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund, and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools.

Here's an mp3 sound file to listen to an interview with McNamara