CLINTON WOMAN WINS AGAIN, THIS TIME ON HER OWN

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Beth Determan Wins $25,000 Playing "Bingo Times 10" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Clinton woman who along with her coworkers won more than $600,000 playing Powerball in 2006 has won another big lottery prize – this time on her own.

Back in February 2006, Beth Determan and 19 of her coworkers at Medical Associates in Clinton pooled their money to buy Powerball tickets. In the drawing on Feb. 18 that year, they hit it big, winning $667,142 in Powerball's Match 5 bonus system. Each member of the "Lucky 20" group won $33,357.10 before taxes.

Now, Determan has won a $25,000 prize playing the "Bingo Times 10" scratch game.

"It's like déjà vu all over again," she said Thursday as she claimed her $25,000 prize.

Determan said she and her husband, Dennis, were on their way to visit her brother in Iowa City when they stopped at a local gas station. That's when her husband decided to buy her a couple scratch tickets to help pass the time on the drive there.

"My husband picked me up a couple. And I was scratching them off," explained Determan. "I'm like, 'Oh, I won $15.' And then I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, I got four corners.'"

Her husband thought she had more than just four corners and told her to check it again.

"He's like, 'Are you sure you don't have an X there?'" said Determan. "I'm like, 'Oh, I do!' And it was $25,000."

When they stopped in De Witt to have their ticket validated, the clerk there gave them a big hug.

With a large family of five girls, Determan, 46, said, "We'll take it."

Determan joked that their youngest daughter had already planned a shopping trip.

They quickly called everyone they could think of to share their winning news. Not surprising, the rest of the family wasn't too shocked to hear their latest round of good news.

"My in-laws always say that I'm lucky anyway," Determan said. "I don't know. We just win $10 here, a $100 here because we play. We like playing."

Determan claimed her prize at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids. Her husband bought her the winning ticket at North Bridge, 119 19th Ave. N. in Clinton.

She already has some plans in mind for how they'll spend their latest winnings.

"We're going to pay one credit card off," explained Determan. "And we're going to share, of course, with the girls. And just put the rest in the bank. We have a wedding coming up, and we have a graduation coming up next fall. I mean there are so many things you can do with it."

Determan said she is a firm believer in the old Lottery adage, "You can't win if you don't play."

"And people do win!" she said.

She also said that she and her coworkers still play Powerball twice a week in the hopes of winning the jackpot someday.

Bingo Times 10 is a $10 scratch game. Players try to match any complete horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, four corners, or an "X" pattern on one of the eight Bingo cards to win the corresponding prize in the prize arrow that points to their card. The "10X" symbol is a "Free" space. If the 10X symbol appears in any winning Bingo pattern, the prize is multiplied by 10. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.37.

Seven top prizes of $250,000 have yet to be claimed in Bingo Times 10, more than 20 prizes of $25,000 still remain, along with more than 65 prizes of $2,500, more than 125 prizes of $1,000, and thousands more prizes of $100 to $500.

Since the Iowa Lottery's inception in 1985, more than $2.2 billion has been awarded in prizes and more than $1.1 billion has been raised for state programs.