DECORAH WOMAN HAS RESTLESS NIGHT
AFTER WINNING $250,000 LOTTERY PRIZE

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Cindy Remick Wins First Top Prize Playing "Cash Bonanza" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Decorah woman didn't sleep well the night before claiming the top prize of $250,000 she won playing the lottery's new "Cash Bonanza" instant-scratch game.

Cindy Remick purchased the winning scratch ticket on her way home from work on Thursday. She said she slept in short periods overnight, waiting to visit the lottery office to claim her prize.

"I just told my husband before I went to bed, 'Well, this is a nice dream,'" she said.

Remick, 52, claimed her prize Friday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids. She purchased her winning ticket at Casey's, 1807 Old Stage Road in Decorah.

She explained that on her 31st wedding anniversary she'd bought a Powerball ticket and won $6. She took her winnings from that and added a little more to purchase the scratch ticket.

She said as she scratched the ticket and kept seeing more zeros in the space with the winning amount, she thought there was something wrong with the ticket. She decided she’d better go into the store to have it checked.

"I said I have to take this back in and see if he can read it and see if it says what I think it says. The little music went off and he says, 'Oh, you're a winner.' He looked at it again and he goes, 'You're a BIG winner!' I said, 'Does it say $250,000?' He said, 'It says $250,000!'" Remick recalled.

The assembly operator at Rockwell Collins in Decorah said she called her husband Mike to tell him of the big win. He was skeptical, however.

"He said, 'Well, you're lying.' Then I started crying and he says, 'Then I knew you won!'" she said.

Remick said she likes to play Powerball, Mega Millions and scratch tickets, particularly Cash Bonanza. She explained that she's won some smaller $50 and $100 prizes playing the Cash Bonanza game, so she kept playing.

"We always said, 'You never know when you're going to hit a big one!'" she said.

Cash Bonanza is a $10 scratch game. Players win a prize by matching any of "Your Numbers" to any of the "Winning Numbers" and win the prize shown for that number. If players find the "Coin" symbol, they win that prize instantly. If they find the "Star" symbol, they win double the prize amount shown for that symbol.

Remick won the first top prize in the game. Nine prizes of $250,000 are still up for grabs in Cash Bonanza, as well as 25 prizes of $10,000, 49 prizes of $4,000, 900 prizes of $1,000 and several thousand prizes of $500, $200 and $100.

Remick has three children and six grandchildren who all live in eastern Iowa. She says she'll have no trouble finding ways to use her winnings.

"There's plenty of holes to fill. We've been thinking about building a house, so now this will just make that a little bit closer. And we have grandkids and kids and so there'll be places," she said.

She joked, "The husband's trying to decide how much I'm going to give him!"

Since the Iowa Lottery's start in 1985, its players have won more than $2.4 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.2 billion for state programs.