A man who wishes to remain anonymous has won a $1 million prize on a scratch-off ticket he purchased for $20 at a Fairview Heights store, the Illinois Lottery announced Monday.
The $1,000,000 Holiday Gold ticket was bought at the Sav-On Liquor & Wine inside a Phillips 66 gas station at 10040 Lincoln Trail.
Since he went to the store with his mother to buy the ticket, he plans to give half of the winnings to her.
“I’m a big fan of the holiday-themed lottery tickets,” the man said in a news release from the Illinois Lottery. “As soon as this year’s holiday tickets were available, my mom and I went to the store to see what they looked like, and I decided to try my luck on a $20 one.”
It was his mom who actually scratched off the ticket to reveal he was the winner.
“Later that day, my mom called me screaming that she was holding a $1 million dollar winning ticket,” he said. “Of course I didn’t believe her — I thought, ‘There’s no way…’
“But I heard the excitement in her voice, so I dropped what I was doing, and ran out the door so fast to go to her house that I forgot to close my front door.”
For selling the winning ticket, Sav-On Liquor & Wine will receive 1% of the prize, or $10,000.
The Fairview Heights store is the second one in the Metro East in recent weeks to sell a million dollar winning ticket.
In September, a man said he wanted to remain anonymous after winning a $14.6 million Illinois Lotto ticket purchased at the Gas Mart at 306 E. Broadway in downtown East St. Louis. The six winning numbers drawn on Aug. 25 were: 5, 9, 14, 18, 22 and 23.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat.
