Illinois Winners Of $349M Mega Millions Step Up To Claim Cash

You may or may not have thought about this before, but how long do you think it would take you after you've won an enormous lottery jackpot to reach out to the Illinois Lottery and claim your prize money? A week, a month, six months---or would you wait until you're about to lose it at the one-year deadline before saying something?

I remember that back in March, the Illinois Lottery made the announcement that they were looking for ten Illinois winners who had not yet claimed their jackpots that were collectively worth over $5 million. For some of those prizes, there were only about two weeks left before the one-year deadline to claim it or lose it.

Some recent jackpot winners must have been paying attention to the fact that you could lose it all if you don't reach out to the Illinois Lottery, because they just came forward after keeping quiet for just over a month.

This $349M Jackpot Win Is Now The Fourth Mega Millions Win In Illinois In The Last Four Years (not by the same people, because that would be suspicious)

Some of Illinois' other big wins over the last four years include:

• $1.337 Billion in July of 2022
• $552 Million in June of 2024
• $56 Million in June of 2021

The very first Mega Millions jackpot win in Illinois was $28 million in May of 2002.

We've Read Some Of The Horror Stories About What Happens When A Group Of People Go In Together On A Lottery Ticket And Then Win The Jackpot

Many of those group lottery ticket purchase stories seem to share a similarity: Someone in the group tries to screw the others out of their shares, friendships crash and burn, then lawsuits are filed that are dragged out in court for years.

That doesn't seem to be the case for Illinois' latest Mega Millions jackpot winners, even though they all went in as a group. Based on their comments after collecting the jackpot, the anonymous people in the group (they chose "Blessed" as their group name) seem really well-adjusted and are planning on doing good things with the money.

Patch.com:

"We took a chance and bought a single Quick Pick ticket," said the lucky winners, who are anonymous but have been nicknamed "Blessed" by the lottery. "We’re absolutely ecstatic and feel incredibly blessed. We plan to use this money to do good — this unbelievable prize will truly be the gift that keeps on giving."

Casey's General Store in Cortland, where the ticket was purchased, also get a nice bonus of $500,000 for selling the winning ticket.