From Radio Iowa By Dar Danielson
Five of the top ten retailers for sales of Iowa Lottery products in the last fiscal year were in Cedar Rapids. (link included to county-by-county top lottery retailers)
Iowa Lottery CEO, Terry Rich, says many of the top retailers have something in common. “You’ll notice that most of the top retailers are grocery stores that have hundreds and hundreds of people coming through throughout the day. Whereas a convenience store may be high in volume, but not so many people go through, so you don’t sell as many tickets,” Rich says.
Seven of the top 10 retailers, including the top 2, are Hy-Vee stores. A convenience store in Fort Dodge was the number 3 seller, while 2 other convenience stores in Cedar Rapids were 9th and 10th in sales. One retailer in Des Moines, the state’s largest city, was in the top ten for sales at number four.
Rich says each store promotes lottery sales in its own way. “Every retailer and every retail manager may have a little different way to promote the lottery or beer or pop or potato chips, and they are all working to maximize their profits,” Rich says.
Grocery stores in Waterloo, Council Bluffs and Mason City joined the convenience store in Fort Dodge as the other non-Cedar Rapids outlets to make the top ten. The top retailer — that Cedar Rapids store in Linn County — sold more than $921,000 worth of lottery products. Ringold County in southern Iowa had the lowest number of sales by county at $81,479 dollars. Ringgold County also did not have any winners of prizes that were $1,000 or more.
The top lottery retailer in Clinton County is Porter’s Convenient Store on Lincolnway with sales of just over 461-thousand dollars.
You can see a complete list of the Iowa Lottery sales by county here: Top Lottery retailers by County PDF
Here are the top 10 retailers in Iowa for lottery sales in FY 14 according to the Iowa Lottery:
Retailer Address FY 14 Sales
1. Hy-Vee, 1843 Johnson Ave. NW, Cedar Rapids ; $921,484.00
2. Hy-Vee, 20 Wilson Ave. SW Cedar Rapids; $905,895.50
3. Kum & Go, 115 N. 22nd St. Fort Dodge; $707,148.50
4. Hy-Vee, 2540 E. Euclid Ave. Des Moines; $617,225.00
5. Hy-Vee, 4000 University Ave. Waterloo ;$612,775.00
6. Hy-Vee, 3235 Oakland Road NE Cedar Rapids; $596,021.00
7. Hy-Vee, 2323 W. Broadway Council Bluffs; $579,486.00
8. Hy-Vee, 2400 Fourth St. SW Mason City; $577,272.50
9. Guppy’s On The Go, 235 Edgewood Road NW Cedar Rapids; $558,963.50
10. Hawkeye Convenience Store ,2330 Wiley Blvd. Cedar Rapids; $534,999.50
