Kassmeyer hits second jackpot in six weeks

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CLIVE, Iowa — A southeast Iowa woman has won a big lottery prize for the second time in six weeks.

Valencia Kassmeyer of West Point won an Extreme Green Progressive InstaPlay jackpot prize of $135,902 on a ticket she purchased at Jet Stop, 603 Academy Ave. in Denmark.

“I couldn’t believe it that I would have two big wins like that that close together,” said Kassmeyer, who claimed a $100,000 prize on Jan. 7. “You see and you read on the Internet about that happening to other people, but you’re like, ‘Surely this isn’t happening to me.’”

The Extreme Green Progressive jackpot starts at $20,000 and increases with each ticket sold statewide until it is won. Kassmeyer, 69, said she had planned to buy a Crossword scratch ticket when she entered the store, but saw the increasing Extreme Green jackpot on the lottery screen as she walked to the counter.

“I said, ‘Well, just give me one of them instead,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘We’ll just try that.’”

Kassmeyer looked the ticket over, scanned it on the store’s self-checker, and then asked a store employee to check it on the lottery terminal, just to be sure. She said she was so excited she couldn’t sleep.

“The first thing I did was put it in my safe,” she said. “And then my adrenaline, I was just so keyed up, I couldn’t sleep.”

She claimed her prize on Thursday at the lottery’s Cedar Rapids regional office. She said she wasn’t sure what she’ll do with her winnings, but buying a new couch was at the top of the list.

The InstaPlay product combines features from instant-scratch and lotto games. InstaPlay tickets are called "scratchless" because they have no security coating that needs to be removed to determine the prize won. And rather than having supplies of tickets printed in advance like those in traditional scratch and pull-tab games, InstaPlay tickets are printed on demand from the lottery terminal.

InstaPlay games range in price from $1 to $20. For more information, visit ialottery.com.

Iowa Lottery, jackpot, lee county, Lottery, news, Pen City Current, Valencia Kassmeyer

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