This is the story of one incredibly lucky lottery player from Illinois. The man, identified only as Steve, was celebrating his birthday when he bought a $5 scratch-off lottery ticket, and it may have been one of the best decisions he has ever made.
Man Becomes Millionaire Around Birthday, Misses Previous $10K Win Who Went to Colleague
The player opted to remain quasi-anonymous, and has not provided further details to the public, but he was happy to pose for the customary photo-op the Illinois Lottery takes, and reveal his face. The win comes after another man won the Lucky Day Lotto draw for $1.3 million.
Steve was happy to talk about his win in detail, offering a few words about how it felt, the difficulty he had of realizing what had happened, and the initial confusion that led him to believe that he won much less money than the actual prize. He was also motivated to keep trying after he and a colleague bought a ticket each, only to find out that his colleague had won $10,000.
“This win came just in time. I’ll tell you what, this is the best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten. [a] few weeks ago, I was debating between two $5 tickets. I picked one that didn’t win, but my coworker bought one of the other ones and won $10,000.”
The $5 ticket was for the Onyx InstantTicket game, and the win occurred on Friday, July 24, with the Illinois Lottery sharing the good news in one of its customary press releases reporting on the event of big state winners.
As to how the win came to be, Steve won the prize after he bought his ticket at the Beck’s North at 401 E. 2nd St. in Kewanee, Illinois. The venue is also going to receive a small bonus for selling the ticket – 1% of the prize amount or, in this case, $10,000.
New Car, Travel, Home Renovation, and Spending Time with His Son
However, Steve did not really rush to check his ticket. He didn’t believe he would win, so he first got home and watched TV before he started scratching his ticket to find out that he had won.
As to what he will do with the money, Steve already has some ideas about that as well. The money will go towards home renovations and improvements, as well as a new car and, naturally, some traveling.
But Steve is also planning to spend winters in Arizona, as his son lives there, and he shares that he would be excited to see him more often – his newfound wealth would help him achieve just that.
This is hardly the only great lottery story coming out of the Prairie State, with a woman recently securing a $1,000,000 prize of her own from the Powerball.