72-year-old woman from Illinois wins $1m lottery prize

One Pamela Arscott of Franklin Park, Illinois, has recently grabbed news headlines after she secured a $1m prize from the Celebration Instant Ticket scratch-off game, the contest’s highest reward.

Lottery winner thought there was a mistake

Commenting on her unexpected win, Arscott told Illinois Lottery representatives that she had no idea she would win. She had made a habit of buying scratch-off tickets, with the latest one bought at Walmart on North Rohlwing Road.

Celebration Instant Ticket is a new game by the Illinois Lottery, and it had caught the eye of Arscott who was browsing for tickets and games. When she saw the new game, she decided to buy a $10 ticket and didn’t think twice about it until the very next day.

The win took Arscott by surprise. The next morning after the purchase, she decided to give the ticket a go. She quickly scratched the thin film that covered the numbers and realized that she had won the top prize right away.

Arscott was incredulous at her discovery, and thought that she had made a mistake or misunderstood how the game worked, hurrying to wake up her daughter and show her the ticket. Just to be safe, Arscott said, she asked her daughter to go back to the shop and scan the ticket again.

Soon after her daughter called in saying that the ticket was the real thing, and that she had won a million dollars. The winner did not necessarily set any plans for what she would do with the money, but she has five children and 10 grandchildren.

A Man in Illinois wins $1m reward in June

Asked why she had won, Arscott said that she had lost her husband last October, and told lottery officials that she felt the reward was a blessing from him.

In a similar lottery win coming out of Illinois, a man also won a $1m prize. He has decided to split the reward with his adult kids, and said that the numbers that he had used were thought special by his late wife. He used the numbers to honor her.

"Since our mom passed away, we include numbers related to her that hold significant meaning for all of us," the anonymous winner’s daughter told the Illinois Lottery. The man was caught by surprise, but found meaning in it attributing it to the numbers that had been used in the first place.

Image credit: Illinois Lottery