The Iowa Lottery’s top management is shooting to “make” 70 million dollars for the state treasury every year. “Powerball” and “Hot Lotto” ticket sales grab the headlines, but sales of scratch tickets are the steady, consistent money-maker for the Iowa Lottery. Terry Rich, the organization’s C-E-O, says that’s why the Iowa Lottery “refreshes” its scratch ticket line-up more than 40 times a year. “These are all basic, block-and-tackle, year-in-year-out business practices we do to make that $70 million base,” Rich says.

Sales for the Powerball, Hot Lotto and Mega Millions drawings are driven by how high the jackpots climb. “We have highs and we have lows,” Rich says. “Last January was huge, the largest jackpot ever and that really drove money to the bottom line. Now, we’ve had some good runs. We’re $12 million ahead year-to-date on sales already, but that was a $17 million dollar in January.”

Powerball ticket sales in a normal January are about 10-million. Rich says focusing on more than just those jackpot drawings, though, is important. He compares it to farmers who plant both corn AND beans. “One year you’ll have a good run with the corn — Powerball or Lotto — and one year you’ll have a good year with the scratch ticket and other operations that we have, so we work on all those,” Rich says. “And diversity of products is very important.”

During the last state fiscal year, the Iowa Lottery sold nearly 234 MILLION dollars worth of instant scratch tickets. That was more than twice as much as total sales for the Powerball, Hot Lotto and Mega Millions jackpots. Iowa Lottery retailers sold 100-million dollars worth of tickets for those drawings.

According to the Iowa Lottery’s website, the first ticket sold by the lottery back in 1985 was for a “Scratch, Match and Win” game. The Lottery is currently offering 49 different “scratch” ticket games for sale in Iowa.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Red Oak say a traffic stop this (Thursday) morning at the intersection of N. 4th Street and Commerce drive resulted in the arrest of 51-year old Tina Ruthann Mendel, of Red Oak. She was taken into custody at around 12:35-a.m. for Driving While Suspended, and brought to the Montgomery County Jail, where her bond was set at $300.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A monthly survey of business supply managers shows improvement but still reflects relatively weak economic conditions in nine Midwest and Plains states. The Mid-America Business Conditions Index report released Thursday says the overall economic index for the region rose to 46.5 in November from 43.8 in October.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says he expects the overall regional economy will continue to underperform the national economy because of the region’s dependence on agriculture and energy.

The survey results are compiled into a collection of indexes ranging from zero to 100. Survey organizers say any score above 50 suggests growth in that factor. A score below that suggests decline. The survey covers Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Iowa officials have formed a partnership with two other states on a “technology upgrade” to process unemployment insurance payments from companies and checks to laid-off workers. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the state’s current system is operating off a computer server that was built in 1973. “We want to get to the iPhone 7.0,” Townsend says.

Townsend’s agency is working with the states of Idaho and Vermont on this project. “We are buying from the State of Idaho a program that they developed internally to get themselves off the main frame to run their (unemployment insurance) benefit and tax programs,” Townsend says. The program is “cloud-based” which means it’s available over the internet via servers owned by a “cloud computing” provider.

Townsend says converting the unemployment insurance program to “the cloud” will cost the State of Iowa between six-to-seven MILLION dollars. “Just for comparison, there have been states nationwide that have put hundreds of millions of dollars into these programs and been unsuccessful and walked away,” Townsend says. “The State of Pennsylvania hired Xerox to create their program. They’ve put about $168 million into it and it’s still not working.”

Townsend says Idaho’s “cloud based” program has been operating for 20 months. “It’s been working very, very well for them,” Townsend says, “so we’re buying something that’s tried and true.” The State of Idaho touts its “Internet Unemployment System” as a revolutionary change. Idaho officials say their agreement with Iowa and Vermont will upgrade the system for “seamless” navigation among devices, be it a “smart” phone or a laptop.

(Radio Iowa)