Iowa Lottery

Clinton Man Calls $50,000 Win "Too Good To Be True"

Harold Voss Wins Top Prize Playing the "7" Scratch Game

  Hear Harold tell his story.

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DES MOINES, Iowa - A Clinton man said it was just a fluke that he bought one of the lottery's "7" instant-scratch tickets, so when he discovered he'd won a top prize of $50,000, he thought it was too good to be true.

Harold Voss, 65, said he considers himself a faithful Iowa Lottery player, but when he stopped at Lyon's Filling Station, 266 Main Ave. in Clinton, he hadn't had the intention of picking up a ticket.

"I wasn't going to buy one and I just thought, 'Oh, what the heck,'" Voss said with a laugh.

Voss said he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw what he'd won, so he took the ticket back to the retailer to have it validated.

"I looked at it and I thought, 'No, it can't be. It's too good to be true!'" Voss said. "When I took it over to the guy I bought it from, he turned about three shades of red."

Voss said the clerks at Lyon's Filling Station celebrated a bit more than he did at first.

"They were all more giddy about it than I was," Voss said. "I just wanted to get it in my hands first!"

Voss claimed his prize Wednesday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Cedar Rapids. He called his daughter, Rhonda Frost, to tell her the news.

"It took me quite a while to get her to believe it," he said. "She told her husband and she said he just held his head down and said, 'What?'"

Voss said he plans to use some of his winnings to pay for an upcoming eye surgery, as well as putting some into savings.

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