$29.5M Lotto ticket sold in Tinley Park
BY STEVE METSCH smetsch@southtownstar.com June 30, 2011 11:04AM
Someone matched the winning numbers for the $29.5 million Lotto June 29 drawing at the Speedway at 183rd St. and Harlem Ave. as seen Friday, June 30, 2011, in Tinley Park. | Matthew Grotto~Sun-Times Media
A Dream dashed
Ken Fryer, of Evergreen Park, knew the steep odds of winning the Lotto had shrunk when he got home late Wednesday night from his job on the copy desk at the SouthtownStar and learned the winning ticket had been sold at the Tinley Park Speedway where he bought a ticket. But he couldn’t check his ticket; he’d left it at work. He was going to offer a co-worker $100,000 to check for him, but the
co-worker had gone home, too. So Fryer made the return 16-mile trip in the middle of the night.
“I had to, or I couldn’t have slept,” he said. “I had it all planned out. ... If it’s me, I post online a world exclusive that I had won. Oh, what a story it would have been.”
Fryer also said he would have given several co-workers thousands of dollars each had he won.
Article Extras
Updated: January 23, 2012 2:51AM
A month-long vacation, a new house for Mom and Dad. Maybe pay off those credit cards or buy a $22,000 motorcycle.
These are a few of the things Southland folks say they would do if they won $29.5 million in the Illinois Lottery.
Don’t laugh. It could happen. In fact, it did happen in Wednesday night’s Lotto drawing.
A ticket purchased at the Speedway gas station, 7201 W. 183rd St., Tinley Park, is worth $29.5 million, lottery spokesman Tracy Owens said.
“We’re anxiously waiting for the person to claim it,” Owens said. “It’s one of the largest Lotto jackpots ever.”
The jackpot grew because nobody has won the Lotto since Jan. 31, a span covering
65 drawings, Owens said.
Whoever won the jackpot has two options: yearly payments of just more than $1 million, or a lump sum of just less than $20 million, Owens said.
The first option is $1.15 million the first year, followed by 25 annual payments of $1.1 million. A lump sum would pay out about $19.4 million, Owens said.
“That’s not bad,” Owens said. “Not bad at all.”
At the gas station Thursday, the winning ticket was the topic of conversation.
Lance Bragg, 45, of Tinley Park, who stopped to fill the tank of a new Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic motorcycle, knows what he’d do first.
“I’d buy this motorcycle,” he said.
A salesman for Calumet Harley-Davidson in Munster, Ind., Bragg rides the bike for work. Given the chance, he’d buy it in a minute. His wife, Colette Bragg, 46, had more domestic issues in mind.
“Our house is in foreclosure now, so we’d take care of that,” she said. “Too bad we didn’t play (the lottery) here.”
A steady stream of customers buys tickets at the store, employee Michelle Luna said.
Luna is excited one lucky customer bought the winning ticket there. If it had been her, she’d continue to work.
“But I’d go on vacation for probably a month to the Bahamas,” Luna, of Mokena, said. “Oh, and I’d buy a new Camaro.”
Travel would be on the agenda for Lawrence Canada, of Country Club Hills, after he paid his bills and donated to charity.
“You can’t keep all that money for yourself,” Canada, 56, said.
But he would also go to Hawaii because “it’s lovely there” and maybe head over to Puerto Vallarta or take a few cruises, Canada said.
The winning numbers were 4, 19, 30, 33, 51 and 52.
Those are not the numbers Tom Butler played.
Butler plays the same numbers for each Lotto drawings. He uses his family’s birth dates.
Although he’s not won huge money, Butler says he’s won $500 “eight or nine times” in the Pick Three drawing.
“I just checked,” Butler, 60, who buys his lottery tickets at that Speedway, said. “I’m not the guy.”
And if he was?
“I’d probably get ‘medicated’ for a little while. And I’d make sure I did the right things with it: Taking care of the family and people less fortunate than us,” said Butler, who is retired. “I’m ready for a vacation, so I’d be gone instantly. The Bahamas, probably. I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s nice.”
Given gas prices these days — a gallon of unleaded jumped from $3.72 to $3.89 in a few hours Thursday — extra money would come in handy, said Wanda Shy as the gas pump rolled past $60 to fill her sport utility vehicle’s tank.
After paying off debts, and helping Power & Light Evangelistic Church in South Holland, where she attends services each Sunday, she’d sneak in a little fun.
“Maybe I’d go on a cruise,” Shy, 50, said. “Or maybe I’d buy a boat or do a big family thing. Usually, I like to do a whole lot for others.”
Shy, of Country Club Hills, said she has never purchased a lottery ticket, “but my daughter says her grandma buys tickets for us.”
Family is also important to Tim Russo, 27, of Chicago, who would buy a new house for his parents back home in Pennsylvania, pay off student loans and invest in mutual funds.
“I’d try to be smart with it. Too many people spend the (lottery) money and end up bankrupt. I may still work, maybe part-time,” said Russo, a fraud investigator.
If your ticket matches five of those six numbers in Wednesday’s drawing, you win $1,473.50.
While that’s a far cry from $29.5 million, it’s still enough to pay for one heck of a Fourth of July weekend.
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