A suburban liquor store in Chicago has ample reason to consider itself “lucky” after recently selling its second multimillion-dollar winning Illinois Lottery ticket within a mere three-year span.
Shar’s Armanetti Fine Wines & Spirits, at 222 W. Main Street in Carpentersville, sold a winning jackpot scratch-off ticket valued at an impressive $3 million to one of its regular patrons.
Here is what that customer did: They spent $30 on the Titanium Black 7s Instant Ticket and emerged with that game’s top prize.
Dhiren Patel, the store owner, said that the winning customer who visits often, thanked him on the spot.
“She scratched the ticket right in front of me after purchasing it and I witnessed the shocked look on her face,” exclaimed Patel. “She then came over closer to me and excitedly said ‘Pinch me, I need to make sure this is real! I won a big amount – thank you, thank you!’ It’s so exciting when the big wins go to our regular, local customers.”
This isn’t the retailer’s first time selling a big winning scratch-off ticket. It occurred another time, which leads Patel to believe that he may be a good luck charm.
“We must be a lucky location for Lottery players,” joked Patel. “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!”
Because Shar’s Armanetti Wines & Spirits sold the winning ticket, it will receive a 1% bonus from it, which amounts to $30,000. Patel intends to invest it in making improvements to the store and contributing it to his children’s college funds.
So far this year, 20 other Illinois Lottery players have become millionaires from scoring on Instant Tickets.
Overall, more than 48 million winning Instant Tickets have been sold in Illinois, netting lottery players over $1.055 billion in prizes in 2023.
The Illinois Lottery currently offers over 50 different Instant Ticket games at over 7,000 retail locations across Illinois.
The Illinois Lottery advises all winners to write their name on the back of their ticket and store them in a safe place until they are prepared to claim their prize. For additional information on prize claims, winners can visit IllinoisLottery.com/winning.
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