DELTA MAN STILL IN SHOCK OVER $30,000 WIN

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Michael Wilcut Wins Top Prize of $30,000 Playing the "Crossword" (orange newsprint) Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Delta man won the top prize of $30,000 playing the "Crossword" (orange newsprint) scratch game.

Michael Wilcut said he scratched his ticket and didn't really think too much about what he saw at first.

"I looked over and I got really close," explained Wilcut, still in shock. "I got really excited but didn't try to overdo it."

He immediately took his ticket back to the store to have it validated, and the clerk turned out to be someone he knew.

"It's a small town. The person that was working at the time was someone that actually graduated a year before I did in high school," Wilcut said.

He said the clerk was just as excited as he was.

Wilcut, 23, said his first thought when he realized how much he had won was, "How do I get it?"

Wilcut claimed his prize April 20 at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Des Moines. He bought his winning ticket at Casey's, 405 E. Jackson in Sigourney.

He's not quite sure how he'll use his winnings just yet.

"At this point it's just kind of going with the flow," laughed Wilcut. "One step at a time."

Crossword (orange newsprint) 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.

Fifty-seven prizes of $30,000 are still up for grabs in Crossword (orange newsprint) as well as 77 prizes of $3,000, more than 1,140 prizes of $300 as well as more than 5,530 prizes of $100.

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.