This might be your sign to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket in Illinois.
A liquor store in the Northwestern suburb of Carpentersville recently sold a $3 million scratch-off lotto ticket, a release from the Illinois Lottery said.
The jackpot-winning ticket -- a $30 Titanium Black 7s Instant Ticket -- was sold at Shar's Armanetti Fine Wines & Spirits, located at 222 W. Main Street in Carpentersville, the release confirmed.
According to lottery officials, its the second time in three years the liquor store has sold a multi-million dollar winning lotto ticket.
“We must be a lucky location for Lottery players,” sore owner Dhiren Patel said in the release. “Three years ago, in March of 2020, we had a $6 million Instant Ticket winner. It was during COVID, so business was quiet and sadly, we didn’t get to celebrate that win with the customer - so this is an especially exciting win for our store!”
Patel says the most recent winner is a store regular, who scratched the ticket off in front of him.
“She scratched the ticket right in front of me after purchasing it and I witnessed the shocked look on her face,” Patel said in the release. “She then came over closer to me and excitedly said ‘Pinch me, I need to make sure this is real!'"
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Patel's store will now receive a 1% bonus -- $30,000, in this case -- for selling the winning ticket, lottery officials say, which he plans to use towards store improvements as well as his childrens' college funds.
According to the Illinois Lottery, 20 other Illinois Lottery players in 2023 have become millionaires after winning on Instant Tickets, including a man who recently won $2 million from a scratch-off ticket sold at a Morris gas station.
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Another scratch-off ticket sold at a grocery store in Wood Dale scored one lucky woman $400,000.
According to officials, nearly 48 million winning instant tickets have been sold in Illinois in 2023.
Earlier this year, an NBC 5 Investigates report revealed that the Illinois Lottery continued to sell and promote many Instant Games even after the top prizes had been claimed. A spokesperson for the lottery told NBC Chicago that although retailers are notified once a ticket no longer has a top prize, the process can be time consuming.
"As the process involves physically removing hundreds of thousands to millions of tickets from our stores for a particular game, that process can take up to 1 to 3 months to complete," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to look for ways to make this process even better for our players and retailers.”
According to lottery officials, there are more than 50 different Illinois Lottery Instant Ticket games at over 7,000 retail locations across Illinois.
