Buffalo Grove man won $250,000 in Mega Millions
A Buffalo Grove man may not be as lucky as the Mega Millions jackpot winner from Red Bud, Ill., but the odds of his $250,000 ticket were 1 in nearly 4 million.
Lottery officials announced Scott Kravitz was one of 11 Illinois players who matched all five numbers during last Friday's record-setting drawing, but missed the Mega Ball.
“It was like an out of body experience, I didn't believe it at first,” Kravitz said, according to the Illinois Lottery. “I kept on staring at the newspaper, at my numbers then back at the newspaper and then at my numbers.”
His mother-in-law was the first person to find out because she was sitting next to him as he spotted the winning numbers and double-checked on the Lottery's website.
The odds of Kravitz's win were 1 in 3,904,701. He said he and his wife plan on using the money to start saving for his children's college education.
$250,000 winning tickets were sold also in Aurora, Streamwood, Chicago, East Peoria, Granite City, Minooka, DeKalb, Rockford, Rochelle and Monee.
Illinois Lottery officials said total sales last week reached $94.36 million, the largest in Illinois Lottery history. The previous record was $73.8 million.
More than $31.5 million of the profits will go to the Illinois Common School Fund.
For a one hour peak period Friday night between 5 and 6 p.m., tickets were selling at a rate of $37,600 per minute.
None of the three winners who will split the $640 million jackpot, including the winner of the ticket sold in Red Bud, have come forward publicly. They are set to get $213 million before taxes. The other winning tickets were sold in Maryland and Kansas.