DES MOINES COUNTY MAN LOSES SLEEP OVER $25,000 WIN

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Gabriel Shirkey Wins Top Prize Playing "Bingo Night" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – After making a routine stop at a local convenience store, a Des Moines County man's girlfriend talked him into buying a "Bingo Night" scratch ticket and he won the top prize.

Gabriel Shirkey, 33, of Middletown, said he didn't get much sleep the night after discovering his $25,000 prize.

"We went home and scratched it off, and I just went nuts!" Shirkey said. "I thought it had to be a fluke."

Shirkey, who works as an electrician, and his girlfriend, Lee Anne Lear, immediately took the ticket to a retailer to have it validated.

"We had them run it through and we jumped up and down and screamed a little bit in there," Shirkey explained as he claimed his prize Thursday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids. He bought his winning ticket at Hy-Vee Gas, 3140 Agency St. in Burlington.

Shirkey said he and Lear have told a few of their close friends and family and said they've all been very excited.

Shirkey said he plans to use some of his winnings to pay bills.

Bingo Night is a $2 scratch game. Players try to match any complete horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, four corners, or an "X" pattern on one of the four Bingo cards to win the corresponding prize in the prize arrow that points to their card. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.57.

Fifteen top prizes of $25,000 are still up for grabs in Bingo Night, as well as 37 prizes of $2,500, 70 prizes of $500 and more than 675 prizes of $250 and $150.

Since the Iowa Lottery's inception in 1985, more than $2.4 billion has been awarded in prizes and more than $1.2 billion has been raised for state programs.