Husband running errand for his wife wins huge lottery prize with lucky number
An Illinois man won a huge lottery prize after he bought a scratch-off ticket while running an errand for his wife.
“My wife wanted a soda, so I ran out to a nearby gas station. At the checkout, I decided to pick up a couple of scratch-off tickets, too,” he told lottery officials, according to a May 16 news release from the Illinois Lottery.
He had no idea that running to the gas station in River Grove to buy his wife a drink and grabbing a $10 Jumbo Bucks ticket would lead to him winning $1 million.
“When I scratched the ticket at home and realized I’d won a million dollars, I was in total shock— but my wife was even more stunned. She didn’t believe me at all. I had to scan the ticket on my app to prove it, and even then, she still thought I was playing a prank on her,” the man told lottery officials.
His wife said she never imagined this would happen.
“Of course this is amazing, but it’s also hard to wrap your head around. We’ve never known anyone who’s won a prize this big, so you start to think, maybe this doesn’t actually happen – but we are now proof that it really does. We feel incredibly lucky, grateful, and honestly still surprised,” she told lottery officials.
The man nicknamed himself “Fateful 56” because he said the number brought him luck.
“The winning number on the ticket was 56 — and I’m 56 years old. I guess you could say I’m his lucky charm,” his wife said, according to lottery officials.
When the man sent a photo of his winning ticket to one of his best friends, the friend responded with a photo of his motorcycle’s license plate, with the number 56 on it.
“I actually picked the ticket because I saw the name ‘Bucks’ on it. I’m a hunter, and I thought it was a hunting-themed ticket — turned out, I was wrong,” the man told lottery officials.
River Grove is about a 15-mile drive northwest from downtown Chicago.
This story was originally published May 18, 2025 at 11:16 AM with the headline "Husband running errand for his wife wins huge lottery prize with lucky number."
