$2M Scratch-Off Lottery Ticket Sold At Chicago Gas Station

CHICAGO — A week ahead of Thanksgiving, a local Illinois Lottery player has $2 million reasons to be thankful after collecting the top prize on the Lottery’s Stacks of Cash scratch-off game purchased from a Chicago gas station, lottery officials announced on Friday.

The winner purchased the ticket at a BP gas station located at 2357 W. Fullerton Ave., where they discovered that they had collected the game’s biggest jackpot.

This is so exciting — it’s unbelievable,” Prakash Raval, manager at the BP in Chicago, said in a news release issued on Friday. “I want to know who the winner is. I hope it’s one of our regular customers who I’ve known for years. I’ve been telling every customer who comes in that someone just won $2 million on a scratch-off ticket here. They can’t believe it, either.”

The jackpot also represents a big win for the BP retailer that sold the winning ticket, as they will receive a selling bonus of one percent of the prize amount, or $20,000, lottery officials said.

This isn’t the first time the retailer has sold a big winning lottery ticket. In June 2017, they sold a $250,000 winning 25X Payout scratch-off ticket.

“A few years ago, a young woman came into our store and purchased her very first scratch-off lottery ticket for $5. I couldn’t believe it — it was a winning ticket worth $250,000,” Raval said. “She came back to tell me ‘I won. I can’t believe I won!’ and I thought wow, she must be very lucky. But now I’m wondering if it’s our store that’s lucky.”

So far this month, nearly 1.5 million winning Instant Tickets have been sold in Illinois, netting lottery players over $32 million in prizes, lottery officials said in the news release.

The Illinois Lottery currently offers more than 50 different Instant Ticket games at more than 7,000 retail locations across the state. Winners have one year from the date of the winning draw in which to claim their prize. The Illinois Lottery encourages all winners to write their name on the back of their ticket and keep it in a safe place until they’re ready to claim their prize.