An Illinois Woman Had a Million Dollar Lottery Ticket Just Sitting in Her Purse

We all would love to just stumble into a million dollars, right?

That’s basically what happened with one of the most casual stories about winning the lottery I’ve come across. An Illinois woman had been traveling and heading through a Chicago suburb when she decided to pick up a Lucky Day Lotto ticket.

It turned out that it really was her lucky day, only she kind of forgot about it and didn’t think to check her ticket until later in the week. 

That’s when she calmly remembered, “Hey, I forgot about that ticket I bought, I wonder where it is?” She dug it out of her purse, scanned it on her phone, and saw a “1,000,000” pop up in the app. 

According to USA Today, she thought it couldn’t be real, “I scanned the ticket one more time to double-check, and when it showed $1,000,000 again, I instantly started crying. I thought, ‘This is unbelievable.’” 

It turns out this woman is the newest recipient of a million bucks and almost forgot she had the ticket floating around her purse. Unreal. 

The woman remains anonymous per the state’s rules and regulations. Illinois is one of 21 states that allow winners to choose to keep their identity a secret. 

That’s probably the right choice, anyhow. After all, I wouldn’t want people knowing I won that much money that quickly. It also doesn’t sound like this woman was that interested (or at least ever seriously believing she had a shot at winning) so of course she’d stay incognito.

Man, it must be nice to reach into your purse or your pocket and find a winning ticket like that. If you’re wondering what would have happened if she just forgot to ever check it. In Illinois, each ticket has a one-year shelf life from its drawing date. If no one comes forward, that money goes to the Common School Fund.