Pit Stop At Grocery Store Nets Illinois Resident $1 Million Lottery Ticket
It wasn’t until a few days later, though, that the big winner discovered the life-changing ticket in her purse
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You should really go and visit your aunt more often.
That’s one big takeaway from a new story shared by the Illinois Lottery, in which a woman was set to spend some time with her dear aunt, but first had to run to the Jewel-Osco in Elmhurst, a regional grocery store chain.
While the Illinois Lottery marketing team did not detail what, exactly, she purchased food-wise while shopping, it did detail the fact she bought a Lucky Day Lotto ticket.
Lucky Day Lotto is a twice-daily Illinois Lottery game where players pick five numbers out of 45 and hope for the best. The jackpot starts at $100,000, and on the day this ticket was purchased, it had grown to $1 million.
“While on my way to visit my aunt, I made a quick stop at Jewel to pick up a few groceries, and before heading out the door, I grabbed a quick pick Lucky Day Lotto ticket,” said the winner, who has requested to remain anonymous. “I actually put the ticket in my purse and forgot all about it.”
Winner, but it was a wait
On Sunday night, Oct. 20 — the night of the drawing — the numbers came up 2, 3, 24, 25, and 28. And those were the exact numbers printed on a ticket that was intermingled with loose change and Chapstick for days.
“A couple days after the drawing, I saw the ticket in my purse and opened my lottery app to scan my ticket and check if it was a winner,” the lucky lady told the Illinois Lottery. “I immediately saw ‘$1,000,000’ on the screen and I was in total shock. I scanned the ticket one more time to double-check, and when it showed ‘$1,000,000’ again, I instantly started crying. I thought, ‘This is unbelievable.’”
Unbelievable or not, she became the ninth Illinois Lottery player to win at least $1 million this year playing Lucky Day Lotto.
“What I’m most excited about is being able to afford annual trips to my favorite place in the whole world: Ireland,” she said. “The landscape is stunning and I’m thrilled that I can now look forward to these trips every year.”
No word if her aunt is invited.
Lucky Day Lotto is an Illinois-only game with twice daily drawings at 12:40 p.m. and 9:22 p.m. Tickets for each drawing are $1.
The most recent jackpot was won Sunday night, as someone took home $700,000 with the winning numbers of 11, 13, 21, 33, and 35.
