Illinois Lottery’s first $1 million ticket of 2026 was bought without visiting a store
The new year might not have started well for a lot of people around the globe, but that is not the case with one Illinois resident. The person became the Illinois Lottery’s first million-dollar winner of the year after they captured the jackpot in the evening draw of the Lucky Day Lotto game on January 4. The winning ticket was purchased online, as per a report in NBC News, which will certainly inspire a lot of people to get more lottery tickets online.
Lucky Day Lotto draws twice a day in the state. Each draw has five numbers, and a player’s ticket must match all five numbers to win the jackpot. The jackpot amount varies depending on the pot, but it usually starts at $150,000. At the moment, the jackpot amount on the lottery website for the next draw is $200,000. Each ticket costs a dollar and can be purchased at participating retailers or via the Illinois Lottery’s website or mobile app.
Some players may buy a ticket and forget about it. In case such players win, the organisers have put in a rule which says that players will have a year to claim their winnings. It is safe to say that rarely has a lottery win ever gone unclaimed. It is not just the massive jackpot amount that players can win. Smaller cash prizes are up for grabs as well.
For example, if a player manages to match two numbers, they will get the money back with which they purchased the ticket - $1. If a player’s ticket has three matching numbers, they’ll win $15. Four matching numbers translate to a much bigger cash prize of $200. However, the big one is the jackpot, which everyone hopes to win when they buy their ticket. Few have ever been able to achieve that.
However, for the ones that do, their lives are made a whole lot easier. Imagine becoming an instant millionaire. Sometimes, the very lucky ones manage to win a cash prize much larger than a million dollars. That’s what happened on December 30 when one Powerball player became the game’s second-biggest winner in history with a $1.8 billlion win. They bought the ticket at a Murphy USA gas station in Cabot.
Residents of the city were excited when the news came out, and even the mayor came forward and gave his two cents. “It’s all over Facebook, Twitter. Everyone’s talking about it and wants to know who it is," Mayor Ken Kincade said. “I hope it’s a citizen from Cabot, of course. That would be wonderful." The lucky winner has 180 days to claim their prize. They will also have the option to take the annuitized price of $1.817 billion or a lump sum payment of $834.9, both pre-tax.
More on Market Realist:
Man gets a message about his $130,000 lottery win — 15 minutes later, he got a reality check
Powerball jackpot just reached $1.5 billion — marking one of the largest in game's history
