"LUCKY DAY" FORTUNE RINGS TRUE FOR LOTTERY WINNER

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 Violet Cook click here.

Violet Cook Wins Top Prize of $30,000 Playing the "Crossword" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – The fortune she received promising good luck quickly came true for a Nebraska woman when she won a $30,000 Iowa Lottery prize!

Violet Cook, of Omaha, Neb., was passing through the Adel/Winterset area when she stopped at truck stop to buy two Powerball tickets. Neither of the tickets won a prize, but Cook also used the nearby "Weight of Fortune" machine to have her fortune told just for fun. The fortune she received said, "This is your lucky day."

A few miles down the road later, Cook made another stop, where she picked up a "Crossword" instant-scratch ticket. After scratching the ticket in her car, Cook realized she had won big.

Cook, 38, who works as a clerk at a gas station in Omaha, bought her winning ticket at Kum & Go, 1203 Guthrie in De Soto.

"I was in shock. I went in there and said, 'Can you check this for me? I think I have ten words.' And he thought I said $10, and he ran it and said, 'It's a $30,000 winner!'" Cook said.

The store clerk alerted his manager of the win.

"She said, 'Are you OK?' and I said, 'No I'm in shock!'" Cook said.

Cook was on her way to pick up her children, who are 16, 14 and 12, when she won. This is the first time she has won a prize of this magnitude in Iowa.

Cook claimed her prize Monday at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Des Moines.

Cook said she plans to pay bills, buy a car, and give her children money with her winnings.

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.

Thirty-seven prizes of $30,000 are still up for grabs in Crossword as well as 58 prizes of $3,000, more than 830 prizes of $300 as well as more than 3,900 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.