CLIVE, Iowa — A Tama County woman is millions richer after purchasing a winning Powerball ticket from a Casey's in Gladbrook, Iowa, on Monday.
The $2 million winning ticket came as a surprise for 36-year-old Megan Balmer, who immediately started double and triple checking her numbers with the Iowa Lottery website and app.
Balmer and her boyfriend headed to another Casey's to confirm her big win.
“We were hurrying to get there and wanted to check it,” Balmer said. “Because I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I couldn’t know, not that I slept much anyway.”
The Garwin resident's ticket matched the first five numbers, and her Power Play addition doubled her initial $1 million winnings to a total no one else in the country claimed that night.
“I was jumping up and down, teary-eyed,” Ellis said. “I was just super excited.”
Balmer told the Iowa Lottery she hopes to use this prize money to pay off debts and plan for the future.
“That’s a big goal of mine: to pay off the mortgage, my student loans from nursing school and credit card debt that I’d like to clear up,” she said. “That’s huge. That’s such a relief to be able to say that I did those things.
There was another big winner in Iowa on Monday night. An unclaimed ticket worth $100,000 was sold at the Casey's located at 406 Iowa Highway 3 in Marcus.
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