JEFFERSON WOMAN'S $3,000 WIN IS ACTUALLY A $30,000 WIN

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Danielle Ohm Wins Top Prize of $30,000 Playing the "Crossword" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – After purchasing a few different tickets with her previous winnings, a Jefferson woman was shocked to win big playing the "Crossword" instant-scratch game.

Danielle Ohm, 26, said when she only saw a few letters on her ticket were left uncovered, she thought she'd done it wrong. Ohm handed the ticket to a couple of friends who thought she'd uncovered nine words for a prize of $3,000.

Ohm then took the ticket to a retailer to have it validated.

"It printed off and the cashier was like, 'Oh my gosh!'" Ohm said. "We were all just like, 'Thirty thousand! Oh my gosh! Really?'"

Ohm, who is a cashier for Kum & Go in Jefferson, said she had told pretty much everyone she knows about her big win.

"My dad didn't believe me. My mom thought it was $3,000 and she was freaking out about it and then she found out it was $30,000 and she was like, 'Oh my gosh!'" Ohm said.

Ohm said she plans to use some of her winnings to pay bills and buy a new car.

Ohm claimed her prize Thursday at the Iowa Lottery's headquarters in Des Moines. She bought her winning ticket at Casey's, 300 E. Lincoln Way in Jefferson.

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, he/she wins $30,000. The overall odds of winning in the game are about 1 in 4.

Eighty-three prizes of $30,000 are still up for grabs in Crossword as well as 126 prizes of $3,000, 1,775 prizes of $300 and more than 8,575 prizes of $100.

Since the Iowa Lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $2.4 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.2 billion for state programs.