One Illinois Lottery player is busting out their party hat and celebrating after winning the $1 million top prize on a $1,000,000 Cash Celebration Instant Ticket.

The winning scratch-off ticket was purchased at a Thornton’s gas station, located at 400 North Independence Blvd. in Romeoville.

“Holy smokes! This just blows my mind,” said Deborah Sparkiewicz, manager at the Thorntons in Romeoville. “We haven’t heard from any customers that they’ve won, and our regulars usually come back to share the exciting news of their wins with us, so this has everyone scratching their heads over who the winner could be.”

Sparkiewicz added, “There’s an oil refinery nearby that employs hundreds of workers from across the country who stay here for months at a time. These workers stop into our store often, picking up essentials. They just completed the work and went back to their home states – and I’m wondering if one of them took this big winning ticket home?”

This is also an exciting win for Thorntons in Romeoville. For selling the winning ticket, the store will receive a bonus of one percent of the prize amount, or $10,000.

When asked what the store will do with the bonus, Sparkiewicz shared, “It would be so nice if we can use the bonus on updates to the store, like upgrading some of the equipment we use regularly.”

The Illinois Lottery currently offers more than 50 different Instant Ticket games at over 7,000 retail locations across Illinois.

So far in 2023, more than 57 million winning Illinois Lottery Instant Tickets were sold, amounting to over $1.2 billion in prizes. Retailers also get a good chunk of change for selling winning tickets – one percent of the prize amount, or in this case, $1.26 million. For Illinois Lottery players and retailers alike, that’s a lot to celebrate.

Winners should visit IllinoisLottery.com/winning for more information on how to claim their prizes.