23 September 2023 , 02:35
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Those who are always hunting for a lucky location or a lucky number may want to schedule a trip to Chicago, as one suburban liquor store has managed to make two people millionaires in the last three years.
Shar’s Armanetti Fine Wines & Spirits, located at 222 W. Main Street in Carpentersville, got its second lottery winner ever after one regular customer got lucky on a $30 Titanium Black 7 Instant Ticket and won the $3 million (£2.6 million) prize. The store owner, Dhiren Patel, says the big winner, who visits the store 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.”
A suburban Chicago liquor store has good reason to deem their store “lucky” after selling its second multi-million dollar winning Illinois Lottery ticket in three years (Supplied)This isn’t the first time the retailer has sold a big winning scratch-off ticket. It happened before, and Patel now believes 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!” For selling the winning ticket, Shar’s Armanetti Wines & Spirits will receive a bonus of 1% of the winning ticket, which in this case amounts to $30,000.
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Patel plans to use the bonus to make some improvements to his business while also putting some money towards his kids’ college funds. So far this year, 20 players of the Illinois lottery have become millionaires after winning on Instant Tickets.
In total, 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 more than 50 different Instant Ticket games at over 7,000 retail locations across Illinois, according to their official website.
A shopkeeper who sold a lucky $1 billion (£815,837,000 million) Powerball lotto ticket is set to become a millionaire - thanks to a loophole. Dad-of-four Raul Nabor Herrera, manager of Las Palmitas Mini Market in Los Angeles, changed the lives of one of his customers overnight by selling the historic winning Powerball ticket in July.
But now his life will also change forever thanks to a loophole in California law which gives the retailer a 0.5 per cent share of the prize fund – which in this case would be up to $1 million. He is already planning to take his children on holiday to Cancun with the Powerball winnings, telling KTV: “It’s a surprise for me."