NEED TO KNOW
- An Illinois father of five won a massive lottery prize in a drawing on Sept. 10
- He told the Illinois Lottery that “it took a few minutes [for his big win] to sink in,” then he called his wife to tell her the good news
- “She gasped so loud I thought she’d drop the phone!” he recalled of his wife’s reaction
An Illinois man says he “couldn’t believe his eyes” when he saw that he’d won a massive lottery prize.
Matthew, a father of five from Crystal Lake, purchased a Quick Pick ticket via the Illinois Lottery app and successfully matched all five numbers in the Lucky Day Lotto evening drawing on Sept. 10, according to a news release from the Illinois Lottery. He scored a jackpot of $550,000.
“I was just at home, staring at the draw results on the app,” Matthew said. “It took a few minutes to sink in that I’d actually won.”
His first call was to his wife, who reacted with similar incredulity.
“The moment I realized, I couldn’t wait to tell her,” Matthew told the Lottery. “There was a long pause, then she gasped so loud I thought she’d drop the phone! Her first words were, ‘Are you serious?’ ”
The couple plans to use Matthew’s winnings to invest in their children’s future.
“First and foremost, this is for our kids — to give them every opportunity to thrive,” Matthew said, adding that they also plan to splash out on a family getaway.
“We’ve always dreamed of a warm family vacation by the ocean, and now that dream can finally come true,” he said.
Lucky Day Lotto is an Illinois-only draw game with two daily drawings at 12:40 p.m. and 9:22 p.m. local time, and jackpots starting at $100,000. Tickets can be purchased in-store, online and via the Illinois Lottery app.
In a similar story in Kentucky, a man won $1.5 million playing the $20 Wild Cash 200X scratch-off game last month.
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He told the Kentucky Lottery that he was in such disbelief that he checked the ticket “50 times to make sure my eyes weren’t bad.”
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