A woman in Illinois won $1 million from a forgotten lottery ticket she rediscovered in her purse.
She came into the seven-figure windfall thanks to a Lucky Day Lotto ticket she said she put in her bag and “forgot all about” after purchasing it during a visit to the grocery store last month on the way to see a relative, according to the Illinois Lottery.
The woman rediscovered the quick-pick ticket in her purse and learned she was a million-dollar winner a couple of days after the state lottery conducted its Oct. 20 evening drawing.
“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,” she said. “I immediately saw ‘$1,000,000’ on the screen and I was in total shock.”
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“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,’” she added.
The ticket landed her that drawing’s grand prize and made her the ninth person to score a prize of at least $1 million from the game in 2024, according to the Illinois Lottery.
The lottery said the woman “requested to remain anonymous.” Illinois lets winners of prizes of $250,000 or more stay unnamed.
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With her seven-figure winnings, the woman said she is looking forward to traveling.
“What I’m most excited about is being able to afford annual trips to my favorite place in the whole world: Ireland. The landscape is stunning and I’m thrilled that I can now look forward to these trips every year,” she told the state lottery.
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In September, two people who bought Lucky Day Lotto tickets won over $1 million, including someone who landed $1.45 million on Sept. 22 and another who scored $1.1 million on Sept. 9, the Illinois Lottery’s website showed.