$100,000 Iowa Lottery Winner in Charles City

A $100,000 Iowa Lottery prize has been won in Charles City.

Three months after moving to Iowa and joking that his lottery luck might improve, Michael Sliepka is celebrating his big win.

Sliepka, who recently relocated from Illinois, claimed his prize at the Iowa Lottery’s Mason City regional office Tuesday (04.07), telling officials, “I told my brother, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll have better luck in the lottery in Iowa. And here, I’ve only been here three months and I already hit a hundred-grand.”

Sliepka won a top prize in the “$100,000 Mega Crossword” scratch game after purchasing his winning ticket at Kwik Star on Gilbert Street in Charles City.

In the game, players try to complete words with a given set of letters. The more words completed, the larger the prize.

Sliepka said, “The last letter gave me six” words. I’m looking at the thing and at the bottom it says six red ones, $100,000. I’m like, ‘No way!’”

Even after a Kwik Star employee double-checked the ticket on the store’s lottery terminal, it didn’t seem real to Sliepka, who said, “It’s one of those where you have dreams that feel like they’re real and then you wake up. I’m like, ‘I hope this isn’t a stupid dream!”

Sliepka said he plans to use his winnings to buy a reliable vehicle, pay off debt and set some money aside for the future.

The $100,000 Mega Crossword game is a $10 scratch game that features 46 top prizes of $100,000, 92 prizes of $10,000.