MINNESOTA GOLF PRO WINS $10,000
AFTER TAKING A WRONG TURN

To download digital audio files of this story, right click here, then navigate to "Save Target As" to save this file to your computer.

For media-ready jpeg image of Mark Westblade click here.

Mark Westblade Wins Top Prize in Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa - A Minnesota man has won a substantial lottery prize thanks to a wrong turn made on the way home from a golf tournament in Pella.

Mark Westblade, 38, of Northfield, Minn., won the top prize of $10,000 in the “Bankroll” instant-scratch game. He purchased the winning ticket at Casey's, 27470 Highway 65 in Hubbard and claimed the prize at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Mason City.

Westblade works as a golf pro in Northfield. He and a friend were on their way home from a golf tournament in Pella when Westblade noticed the racetrack at Prairie Meadows in Altoona. Westblade said his friend loves horses so he pointed it out to him. As a result, they missed their turn.

“We missed [I-80] to get back to [I-35] and ended up on [Highway] 65 North,” he recalled. “So he was a little upset at me.”

They stopped to pick up refreshments in Hubbard.

“He was going to make me buy a soda and chips since I confused him and we ended up on the wrong road,” Westblade said. “I don't very often buy [scratch] tickets…. [I] saw this guy in front of me buy some tickets and …I ended up saying, ‘What the heck? I'll buy five tickets.’ And I ended up scratching off the $10,000 winner.”

His friend was shocked!

“He [said], ‘Unbelievable. You get us off track and lost and you end up winning,’” Westblade laughed. “I bought his chips and soda and I bought his golf for the weekend.”

He said he's not sure yet how he'll spend his winnings.

Bankroll is a $2 instant-scratch game. If a player finds a “Bankroll” symbol, he or she wins the prize shown below that symbol. The overall odds of winning in the game are about 1 in 5.

Westblade claimed the fourth top prize in the game. Six top prizes of $10,000 are still available in the game, along with about 750 prizes of $80.

Since the Iowa Lottery's inception in 1985, more than $2.1 billion has been awarded in prizes and more than $1.1 billion has been raised for state programs.