Franklin Park woman wins $1M grand prize on scratch-off ticket marking Illinois Lottery’s 50th anniversary

CHICAGO — A $10 purchase turned into a $1 million return for Franklin Park woman Pamela Arscott.

The recent purchase of a $1,000,000 Celebration Ticket won Arscott the top prize in the drawing that’s celebrating the Illinois Lottery’s 50th anniversary this month.

“I was at Walmart the other night when I saw the new Celebration Instant Tickets, and they caught my eye, so I bought a $10 one,” Arscott explained in an Illinois Lottery press release. “I didn’t think anything of it. I actually put it in my purse and forgot about it until the next morning.”

When Arscott remembered it, she was in for quite a shock.

“I started scratching the ticket and saw I had a matching number for a million dollars,” Arscott recalled in the release. “I thought it was a mistake. I immediately woke up my daughter. I told her to run out to the store to scan it to double-check and make sure it’s real.

“She got to the store, scanned the ticket, called me and said, ‘It’s real. You’re getting a million dollars, Mom.'”

The winning ticket was purchased at a Walmart in Addison, located at 1050 North Rohlwing Road. The store will receive a bonus of 1% of the prize amount, or $10,000, for selling the winning ticket.

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