Lottery "crew" scoop up "miracle" jackpot together
By Kate Northrop
CHICAGO, Ill. — Three Illinois friends are sharing a "life-altering" $1.4 million Lucky Day Lotto jackpot, which they said will impact each of their lives in unique ways.
A "crew" of three Illinois friends pooled their funds for a Lucky Day Lotto ticket and are now splitting a $1.4 million lottery jackpot after it matched the winning numbers in a drawing last week.
Friends who play together win together — that's the story of "Tommy Lotto and Crew," three lifelong friends who jointly claimed a $1.4 million Lucky Day Lotto jackpot in the Illinois Lottery.
Tommy, or Tommy Lotto, purchased the winning ticket at a Mobil gas station on West 55th Street in Chicago for the midday drawing on Monday, Nov. 4.
"We have a group of friends, and we occasionally pool our money and go in on a lottery ticket when the jackpots are big," Tommy told the Lottery.
He was the one to discover that the group's ticket had matched all five numbers: 13, 15, 22, 29, and 40.
"After realizing the big win, I went back to the Mobil where I purchased the ticket and shared the exciting news with the clerk, Teresa," Tommy recalled. "I've lived in the area for a long time, so we know each other at this point. I swear the color drained from her face when I told her the news because she was so shocked. Then she burst out laughing and was so happy for me!"
The trio claimed the prize in person together, each sharing their own unique experience upon discovering they would suddenly be coming into a big sum of money.
"When Tommy called and said we won, we thought he was kidding — then he read off the numbers. Our families and neighbors are thrilled for us!" the crew shared.
"I actually called my boss to share the news," one group member laughed. "I said, 'I won the lottery... but I'm still coming to work!'"
Tommy compared the win to a miracle, telling Lottery officials about the myriad of ways he can see himself putting his share to good use.
"This win is a miracle!" he related. "Now, I can help pay for more of my daughter's upcoming wedding. I'm also a huge Blackhawks fan, and I'm excited to treat my friends and family to many games this season."
Meanwhile, another group member is looking forward to investing his share of the winnings in retirement, and the other is excited to put the money towards his children's college tuition.
"This is a life-altering win," they said.
For selling the winning ticket, the retailer receives a $14,000 bonus from the Lottery, or one percent of the prize amount.
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 $150,000 for the next drawing on Tuesday, Nov. 11 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.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
No mention of how many tickets/lines bought. The way it reads now is they pooled money to buy a $1 ticket.
That's what happened...that's why he called it a miracle!
My guess is that the one with the "big brain" in the middle is Tommy Lotto.
Great story!
Congrats!
I believe they ponied up more than .33 each to buy a ticket. Still, it is unheard of to split a 1.00 Cash 5 game ticket 3 ways. The guy who is going to pay for a wedding (help pay) for his daughter and buy tickets for friends and family to several Black Hawk games will find that cost prohibitive after a couple of games at what they charge for a seat. They are getting 309k each after taxes. Not bad at all but hardly worth going ape over.
I'm just going by what the news story stated. Apparently, the 2 friends contributed .33 apiece, and Tony Lotto put in .34.
Weill, I find Tommy Lotto's reaction to the whole episode a little odd. It kind of goes against those that prefer to remain anonymous.
They remind me of some drinking buddies...just regular guys.
I once drove a friend to the liquor store to cash his check and noticed that he bought only one lotto ticket for $1.00.
I thought it was a bad idea at the time but now I see that it can be done.
Is Tommy Lotto a genius?
If he could pick the winning numbers with one ticket, perhaps.
Like Nikola Tesla, sometimes geniuses are odd.
Kate who is a nice person who wrote the article for Todd leaves out all the interesting aspects in these stories. She violates the who, what, when, where and how parts code too often that writers are supposed to follow. I believe they bought more than one ticket. Probably fifteen. If it were only one it should have been pointed out better.
Sorry for getting his name wrong. It should have been Tommy Lotto.
He said himself that occasionally they pool their money together to buy a lottery ticket.
I think he would have said "lottery tickets" if he meant more than one.
Smart Luck has a post about this win.
SmartLuck has a blog post about this dated 7 Nov 2024. They spent $180.
Yep, just found it on the blog, thank you
Three Illinois friends split $1.4 million Lucky Day Lotto jackpot
https://www.smartluck.com/blog/previous-multiple-jackpot-winner-wins-anew-for-1-4-million/
For some reason,the link I posted will not display.
In short,this is the summary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Nov 4th, 2024, Tom McGill, a longtime user of Smartluck software, won $1,400,000 in the Illinois Luck Day Lottery (his 3rd jackpot using Smart Luck’s products). Unlike many of our other users who have won large jackpots, Mr McGill has allowed us to publish his winning information. In Mr Mcgill’s case, he used our Advantage Gold software to get the numbers he used, and a wheel from our Wheel Five Gold software with 36 combinations and a 2 of 2 win guarantee (system 52036). His small players group of three played this wheel five times with overlapping numbers to use all the numbers in that lottery. Lucky Day Lottery draws 5 numbers twice a day from a pool of 45 with the odds of winning the top prize at 1 in 1.2 million. The number of combinations they played dropped their odds of winning to 1 in 6,788 — Their $180 investment returned $1,400,001 — not bad! In the past, Mr McGill’s group has also won jackpots of $1.2M and $400K and many, many smaller prizes using our software products! Congratulations to Mr. McGill & his small group on their big win!!!