Spooky deadline approaching right before Halloween

By Kate Northrop

The deadline to claim an Illinois Lottery Lucky Day Lotto ticket worth $250,000 is frighteningly close, just in time for Halloween.

Whoever is holding a $250,000 Lucky Day Lotto ticket in Illinois from an October 2023 drawing has less than two weeks left to claim the prize before it expires.

The Illinois Lottery announced that they still haven't heard from the winner of a $250,000 Lucky Day Lotto prize, who purchased their winning ticket last year at Fairplay Finer Foods on South Western Avenue in Chicago.

Players should "search every nook and cranny in their homes for the missing winning ticket," the Lottery advised in a press release today.

Winners have 364 days from the draw date to claim lottery prizes in Illinois.

"If you think you purchased a Lucky Day Lotto ticket for last year's October 29 drawing, now is the time to check under your sofa cushions, in old coat pockets, or any other spots where a year-old lottery ticket might be tucked away," the Lottery said.

The ticket matched all five numbers in the midday drawing — 5, 15, 24, 31, and 34 — to win the rolling jackpot of $250,000.

That's not the only prize sitting in limbo. There are five other notable prizes that have also not been claimed, including a $100,000 Powerball prize won on March 23 and a $1 million Lotto prize won on July 6. Those winning tickets were purchased in Centralia and Chicago, respectively.

In total, there are six unclaimed Illinois Lottery prizes, totaling $3.8 million in winnings.

Lucky Day Lotto is a draw game local to Illinois, in which players pick five numbers from 1 to 45 for a chance at the progressive jackpot. The jackpot increases by $50,000 every time a drawing occurs without a winner.

The Lucky Day Lotto jackpot currently stands at $500,000 for the next drawing on Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 9:20 p.m. Central Time. The odds of matching all five numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 1,221,759. Tickets cost $1 each.

All winning numbers, prizes and odds can be found on Lottery Post's Illinois Lottery Results  page right after each drawing.