Housekeeper scratches lottery ticket before work and wins big. ‘I didn’t believe it’

A housekeeper sent her boyfriend to cash a few of her winning lottery tickets at a Kwik Star convenience store, and while he was there, he bought more Iowa lottery tickets.

“The next day before work, we were sitting there having coffee and I was scratching them and scanning them,” Ivy Wilson told lottery officials.

That’s when the 27-year-old Clear Lake woman realized she had won the top prize with her “$30,000 Crossword” scratch game ticket, according to a May 19 news release from the Iowa Lottery.

“I thought that I had won on that one, but I didn’t think I won that much,” Wilson said. “I didn’t believe it, really.”

But she really had won the $30,000 prize, officials said.

Before her big win could sink in, Wilson was off to work, where officials said she had a hard time concentrating.

“I didn’t want to say anything to anyone quite yet because I kind of wanted to process it first,” Wilson said. “It was very distracting, that’s for sure. The adrenaline was definitely going all day long.”

Wilson claimed her prize on May 17, though she wasn’t sure how she’d use her winnings.

“I definitely want to take some time and think about it, because that’s an amount of money that can turn your life around,” she told lottery officials. “It can definitely change the direction of your path, so I want to make sure I do smart things with it.”

Clear Lake is about 115 miles north of Des Moines.

This story was originally published May 19, 2023 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Housekeeper scratches lottery ticket before work and wins big. ‘I didn’t believe it’."