CLIVE, Iowa—An Ogden man bought a lottery ticket on a whim and won a $10,000 prize.

Anthony Sundall, 39, won the big prize in the Iowa Lottery’s “$100,000 Mega Crossword” scratch game. He purchased his winning ticket at Casey’s, 1127 Story St. in Boone.

“I stopped in there and got gas and a drink,” Sundall told officials on Monday as he claimed his prize at lottery headquarters in Clive. “I was looking at the lottery tickets. I never win, but I was like, ‘Hey, give me that $10 Crossword.’”

He took it home and threw it on the table, but didn’t scratch it until the next day. Sundall said he expected it to be a non-winner when the first five letters didn’t match.

“It was kind of like, ‘What the heck?’” he said.

But when he was done playing, he realized he’d reached the game’s second top-prize level. He counted the words “about 10 times” just to be sure, and then scanned the ticket with the Iowa Lottery’s mobile app to verify his win.

“I scanned it with that app, and I did that like two times,” Sundall said. And It was like, ‘No way!’”

The $100,000 Mega Crossword is a $10 scratch game that features overall odds of 1 in 3.30 and 38 top prizes of $100,000. For more information about this game, and the number of prizes still available, visit ialottery.com.

Anthony Sundall $10,000 Lottery Prize Winner

(contributed press release and photo, Iowa Lottery)