KANSAS WOMAN WINS $500,000 PRIZE
IN IOWA-KANSAS LOTTERY GAME

The following media-ready jpeg images are available:

 Midwest Millions ticket

 Larry Montgomery

Three Iowa Players Win $10,000 Prizes Friday In "Midwest Millions" Drawing

TOPEKA, Kan. – A Kansas woman won a $500,000 prize and five other lottery players from Iowa and Kansas won $10,000 prizes Friday in a joint drawing by the Kansas and Iowa lotteries.

Sandra Vines of Wichita, Kan., was selected as the top-prize winner of $500,000 in the "Midwest Millions" drawing conducted Friday by lottery officials at Kansas Lottery headquarters in Topeka, Kan. Five winners of $10,000 prizes, three of whom were Iowans, also were selected in the drawing. A second drawing in the game is scheduled for April in Iowa.

"It's very appropriate Iowa and Kansas are working together on this scratch game," Larry Montgomery said as he selected the grand prize winner in the drawing. Montgomery served as the Kansas Lottery's first executive director when it began operations in 1987. "All of these joint efforts do one thing for the players and both lotteries: They provide more money."

Friday's winners were:

The Kansas and Iowa lotteries became the first in the United States to offer a joint instant-scratch game when the initial version of Midwest Millions began sales in September 2007. The lotteries are building on that game’s success with a second version of Midwest Millions, which is on sale in both states after hitting the market in September.

Tickets in this year's game feature three different scenes of landmarks that represent Kansas and Iowa, including the states' capitols in Topeka and Des Moines; Kansas' oldest courthouse in Cottonwood Falls; and the Bridges of Madison County in central Iowa. Players in both states are buying tickets and competing for prizes as part of one big pool.

The idea behind the game is to apply to another product line the "Powerball concept" that has enabled states to join together in lotto games and offer bigger prizes and more chances to win than they would have been able to achieve on their own.

The 2007 version of Midwest Millions had strong sales in both states, with Iowa's tickets nearly selling out and Kansas selling nearly 90 percent of its tickets in a much shorter timeframe than it normally utilizes for a $10 game.

Kansas Lottery Executive Director Ed Van Petten found inspiration for Midwest Millions in the success that Canadian lotteries have achieved by joining together to offer scratch games with millions of dollars in prizes.

Midwest Millions is a $10 game that offers instant prizes ranging from $10 to $50,000. In addition to Friday's drawing in Topeka, another drawing offering a top prize of $500,000 and five prizes of $10,000 will be held April 17 in Des Moines.

Nearly 70,000 entries were received for Friday's drawing. Players enter the Midwest Millions drawings by sending in nonwinning tickets in the game.

Iowa Lottery players won both $500,000 prizes in the first Midwest Millions game. Ralph Kuwamoto, a railroad worker from Lincoln, Neb., who bought a Midwest Millions ticket while working in Glenwood in southwest Iowa, won one of the prizes, while Stephen Zabel, a meatpacker from Conesville in eastern Iowa, won the other.

Joe Hrdlicka, the Iowa Lottery's vice president of marketing, assisted with Friday's drawing and said players' enthusiasm for the game is evident.

"The biggest benefit to the multi-state game concept is being able to offer more exciting prizes to our players," he said. "They obviously see the appeal of Midwest Millions because Iowa Lottery players alone have bought more than $2.6 million worth of tickets in this year’s version of the game."

Since the Iowa Lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $2.2 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.1 billion for state programs.