Iowa Lottery

West Des Moines Man Walks In For Slice Of Pizza, Walks Out With $10,000 Prize

Lawrence Culp Claims Big Prize Playing the "Did I Win?" Scratch Game

  Hear Lawrence tell his story.

To download image, right click on image, then navigate to 'Save Picture As' to save this file to your computer. To download digital audio files of this story, right click here, then navigate to "Save Target As" to save this file to your computer.

DES MOINES, Iowa - A West Des Moines man walked into a convenience store for a slice of pizza, and walked out with a $10,000 lottery prize.

Lawrence Culp, 43, decided to pick up a "Did I Win?" instant-scratch ticket at Casey's, 501 N. Douglas Ave. in Afton when he stopped for something to eat. He never thought he'd win a $10,000 prize, though.

"I got one 'yes' and it just happened to be $10,000," Culp said. "I didn't really know what to do."

Culp, who is a delivery man for Shaw Flooring, asked the assistant manager of Casey's to validate the ticket for him.

"She said, 'Yep, you're definitely going to have to go to Des Moines!'" Culp said.

Culp called his mom to tell her the news, and later called his girlfriend, Susan Hanson.

"I called my mom because I didn't know what to do," he said. "I sent my girlfriend a picture and called her to tell her what happened."

Culp said he plans to save some of his winnings as well as take a long vacation next year.

"We want to go to New Zealand and go hiking in the mountains," he said.

Return to top↑