SOLD! CAR SALESMAN WINS $50,000 "FUNKY 5'S" LOTTERY PRIZE

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Alan Buchheit Wins Top Prize Playing the "Funky 5's" Scratch Game

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Cedar Falls man found luck in an old, beat-up penny he picked up in a gas station parking lot - $50,000 worth of luck, that is.

Alan Buchheit won the top prize playing the Funky 5's instant-scratch game. Buchheit said he likes to play Funky 5's, along with the lottery's "Double Payday" scratch game.

"I could not sleep last night! I always look for pennies on the floor when I go in, to use them for scratching. I found one that was outside that was all beat-up and run-over, but it was my lucky penny," Buchheit said.

Buchheit, who is a car salesman for Dan Deery Motors in Cedar Falls, scratched the ticket in his car in the gas station parking lot. He said he looked at the ticket about five times before taking it back in to have it validated.

"I said, 'Could you check this please?' and she said, 'You got a big one?' and I said, 'I think so.' She ran it and just looked at me and she kept saying, 'Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!' So I said, 'So it must be true?' And she said, 'Oh yeah!'" Buchheit said.

He bought the winning ticket at Kwik Star, 2016 College Ave. in Cedar Falls.

Buchheit took the ticket home and asked his family to guess how much it was worth. He said they guessed $500 or $1,000 and didn't believe him when he told them how much he'd won.

"They're all happy for me," Buchheit said.

That night, he said he put the ticket away to keep it safe, but couldn't sleep at all. Buchheit claimed his prize Monday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids.

He said he plans to pay off his bills and save the rest of the winnings.

Funky 5's is a $5 scratch game with three different money-themed play areas on each ticket. Prizes in the game range from $5 to $50,000.

Eleven top prizes of $50,000 are still up for grabs, as well as more than 450 prizes of $500 and more than 1,790 prizes of $150.

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.