SPRINGFIELD — A Southern Illinois man won $6,250,000 when the lucky numbers that he has played for the past 30 years matched all six Lotto numbers 09 - 10 - 11 - 16 - 17 - 18 in the Monday, February 10, 2020 drawing.
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The player, a retired air traffic controller and police officer who requested anonymity at the time of his claim, was in complete disbelief when he received the email notifying him of his win from the iLottery online platform.
“I check my email every morning and when I opened the message I did a double, and then a triple-take. I couldn’t believe it! I had to call my wife down to the office to check the numbers too!” the iLottery winner said.
After his wife of 56 years confirmed the numbers all matched, they called their children to share the big news and then made their winnings wish list.
“We have three children, so securing their future financially is an important first step for us. I bought myself a big screen TV and we are planning to remodel our kitchen and our game room. This summer, we hope to take a riverboat cruise and buy a new car and motorcycle,” he explained.
Paying it forward is also important to this Lottery winner, he plans to donate part of the prize to a few charities that are near and dear to his family's hearts. “We plan on donating to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Shriners Hospitals for Children and also to the St. Louis Hope Lodge, which helps provide support to families of patients coping with a cancer diagnosis and treatments.”
The winner had these final words to share with other players who hope to hit the jackpot one day, “I’ve been playing the Illinois Lottery for over 20 years and my advice is to go slow and be persistent,” he said. “You’ve got to be really, really lucky and you have got to buy a ticket!”
The winning Lotto ticket was bought on the Illinois Lottery App, which is designed to offer players an engaging streamlined experience. The mobile app is available for iOS and Android users. The iOS app can be found in the Apple App Store, and Android users can download the app from the Illinois Lottery’s website.
More than 74,500 other prizes ranging from $1 to $1,000 were won in this Lotto drawing. In all, players won more than $6,400,000, in this drawing. Lotto drawings are three days per week on Monday, Thursday and Saturday at 9:22 p.m. For more information or to buy tickets online, please visit illinoislottery.com.
About the Illinois Lottery:
Founded in 1974, the Illinois Lottery has contributed over $21 billion (since 1985) to the state’s Common School Fund to assist K-12 public schools, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars to the Capital Projects Fund and to special causes like homelessness prevention, Illinois Veterans services, the fight against breast cancer, MS research, Special Olympics, police memorials and assistance for people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to playing in-store, the Illinois Lottery offers online and mobile play for all draw-based Illinois Lottery games at illinoislottery.com. Players must be at least 18 years old.
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