A lucky customer of a Naperville liquor store is $1 million richer.
The luck of the Irish rubbed off on 9,253 St. Patrick’s Day Millionaire Raffle ticket holders, including three who won top prizes of $1 million.
The winning ticket was sold at Solo Liquors, 1474 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville.
“That’s unbelievable. I’m not a big store,” said Brad Jiwani, Solo’s owner since 2014.
“This is the biggest prize. Most of the other big prizes were around $3,000 to $5,000,” he said. The largest recent payout was $3,600, he said.
Jiwani said most of his customers live or work in the neighborhood, and he’s interested to see which one was the winner. No one had yet come forward.
One regular usually buys a St. Patrick’s raffle ticket, but did not this year. “I think his odds would have been better this year,” Jiwani said.
Equally amazing was a second winning ticket was sold less than five miles to the east at Leo’s Wines & Spirits, 3018 Hobson Road in Woodridge.
“What are the odds?” Jiwani said.
The third $1 million ticket was sold at a Circle K in Divernon, a town south of Springfield.
Illinois Lottery officials said St. Patrick’s Day Millionaire Raffle is played like a typical raffle game with a finite number of tickets and prizes. Each $20 raffle ticket contained a unique number generated by the Lottery terminal.
Raffle tickets were sold in sequential order throughout the state, beginning with ticket number 000001. To win one of the 9,253 prizes awarded in the raffle, a player’s raffle ticket must have exactly matched one of the 9,253 winning numbers selected in the drawing.
The St. Patrick’s Day Millionaire Raffle provided players a chance to win one of three $1 million prizes, 250 $1,000 prizes and 9,000 $100 prizes.
Winners have one year from the drawing date, March 18, to claim their prizes.
Winning tickets of $1,000 or more need to be presented, along with the winners’ photo ID and Social Security card, at one of five Illinois Lottery Prize Centers located in Chicago, Des Plaines, Fairview Heights, Rockford and Springfield.