Sharing and gift giving don't have to wait until December

By Kate Northrop

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. — An Illinois man demonstrated why getting into the holiday spirit of gift giving doesn't have to wait until December when he won a $1 million prize on a lottery ticket and shared it with his mother.

A lucky Illinois lottery player is splitting his winnings down the middle with his mother after a joyful, million-dollar celebration brought the holidays into full swing.

The holiday season is officially underway in the lottery world, with state lotteries releasing their festive scratch-off tickets across the U.S. for players to stuff their stockings with and give as gifts to fellow players. However, that doesn't mean the big wins have to wait until the end of the year.

An anonymous Illinois man and his mother were already looking forward to trying out the holiday-themed scratch-off tickets by the time they went on sale and wasted no time in checking out what they looked like this year.

"I'm a big fan of the holiday-themed lottery tickets," the player told the Illinois Lottery. "As soon as this year's holiday tickets were available, my mom and I went to the store to see what they looked like, and I decided to try my luck on a $20 one."

He picked out a $20 "$1,000,000 Holiday Gold" scratch-off ticket at Sav-On Liquor & Wine on Lincoln Trail in Fairview Heights, and what they found was truly as good as gold. The lottery enthusiast left the ticket with his mom for her to scratch and went home.

"Later that day, my mom called me screaming that she was holding a $1 million dollar winning ticket," the winner continued. "Of course I didn't believe her — I thought, 'There's no way...'"

"But I heard the excitement in her voice, so I dropped what I was doing, and ran out the door so fast to go to her house that I forgot to close my front door!" he laughed with Lottery officials. "When I saw my mom and the winning ticket, I realized it was real — we really had a $1 million winning ticket in our hands. We both started jumping up and down and screaming with joy together."

The retailer wins out too — they'll receive a $10,000 bonus, or one percent of the prize amount, for selling the winning ticket.

Finally, the "Holiday Gold" winner had one person in mind when asked what he plans on doing with the winnings.

"First things first, I'm splitting this prize with my mom and giving her half," he said in a press release.

This year, the Illinois Lottery has a full range of holiday-themed scratch-off games available to play at price points between $1 and $20.

"I just never expected that I would win a big prize like this," the winner conveyed to Lottery staff. "All I can say is — it really is possible."

This festive winner claimed the first of three top prizes of $1 million in the $20 "$1,000,000 Holiday Gold" scratch-off game, leaving two top prizes left. There are also 13 out of 16 second-tier prizes of $10,000 and 488 out of 602 third-tier prizes of $1,000 remaining.

The overall odds of winning any prize in the game, which launched in October, are 1 in 3.37.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)An Illinois Lottery player, who chose to remain anonymous, after winning the top prize of $1,000,000 with a $20 scratch-off ticket.

(Click to display full-size in gallery)Close-up of the actual winning ticket.