Iowa man wins $400K lottery prize the day after getting engaged
Nick Miller won't soon forget the summer of 2023.
The 31-year-old from the small Dubuque County town of Bernard got engaged Friday night, June 23. Hours later, on Saturday morning, he stopped for coffee and a slice of breakfast pizza at a Casey's store in Cascade, where he decided to try his luck after seeing the Super 7s Progressive lottery game had climbed to nearly $400,000.
The $30 risk paid off in the game that had been growing since April.
"I went back to my truck and the first thing I did was look down to the progressive jackpot game and started matching my winning numbers," Miller said in a news release from the Iowa Lottery. "And I had one and then two and then I saw the third one, so I had to do a double-take and check them again. Eventually, I checked them on my mobile app, and sure enough, it was the winner."
Miller's prize of $390,191 was one of three big wins that weekend in Iowa.
An Ottumwa woman won $2 million in the June 24 Powerball drawing.
A ticket purchased at Smokin’ Joe’s, 3120 Rockingham Rd. in Davenport, won $1 million in the June 23 Mega Millions drawing. That prize has not yet been claimed.
Miller farms with his family and works at Rail-Way Inc., a Cascade company that produces railroad crossings, according to the release. He said the lottery prize will help him and his fiancee, Lauren Timmerman, start their life together.
"There is the wedding and a house to start doing some work on," he said in the release. "It will definitely go a long way towards both of those."