OTTUMWA WOMAN ON $12,000 LOTTERY WIN:
"IT'S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE"

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Karen McVey Wins Top Prize Playing the "King of Cash" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – An Ottumwa woman was shaken after discovering her $12,000 win.

"I'm just shaky and happy and all those things," said Karen McVey.

McVey won the top prize of $12,000 playing the "King of Cash" instant-scratch game.

McVey said she was near a convenience store after dropping her kids off at a baseball field and decided to stop.

"I decided to go in and get some stuff, and said 'Oh give me some of those,' and there it is," she said.

McVey scratched the ticket in her car, but did not return to the store to have it validated because she thought it was too good to be true.

McVey, 47, claimed her prize Friday at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Des Moines. She bought her winning ticket at Casey's, 1603 W. Second St. in Ottumwa.

She told her husband the news first.

"I just walked in and kind of showed it to him," McVey said. "He said, 'Well what are we going to do now? I guess we better go see if it's any good.'"

McVey, a substitute teacher for Ottumwa schools, said she usually plays Powerball or Hot Lotto games, but decided to play King of Cash for fun.

She said she plans to "spread the money around," and that she and her husband might take a vacation to Las Vegas to visit his family.

"I just said, 'This is too good to be true,' but I looked at it again and looked at it again, and I said, 'No, I think this is it,'" McVey said.

King of Cash is a $2 scratch game. Players win if "Your Card" beats "Their Card" within a hand to win the prize shown for that hand. If a player finds the "King" symbol, he/she wins double the prize shown for that hand. The overall odds of winning in the game are 1 in 3.83.

Seven prizes of $12,000 are still up for grabs in King of Cash, as well as more than 680 prizes of $120.

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.