The Illinois Lottery. Their slogan of “Anything’s Possible” doesn’t give much hope to a small town player, but as it turns out, their slogan’s not a lie.
It’s hard to believe that just a week ago, a local man walked in to the Cenex in Macomb, took a chance like so many do, and walked out a millionaire.
Larry Roberts says he walked into the Cenex on Saturday not knowing his life was about to change, forever.
“He was very very excited, and he asked me to verify the ticket,” said Elizabeth, an employee at Cenex. “I looked at it, said it was a winner, he gave me a hug and was practically jumping up and down he was so excited.”
Larry’s one dollar scratch off ticket turned into one million dollars
“We just came out with it, and we were a little surprised we had a winner so soon. But that’s the nature of the lottery, you never know,” says lottery spokesman Mike Lang.
“We’re going to invest a lot, you know, we’re gonna have fun with it and do some things for ourselves. But, we’re gonna take care of bills, do a little vacationing. We still havent had a vacation, we’re still fairly newlyweds, we’ll be married two years in October so we haven’t had a vacation like that together yet so we want to do some things like that. But we also want to invest it and manage it wisely,” says Roberts.
What was Larry’s secret to winning the big jackpot? Well, he might have just had some help from above.
“I lost my mother about a month ago and I feel like she was looking down on us and has truly blessed us. I plan on using some of the money also to help with her headstone and some of the funeral arrangements. But… Thank You Mom…”
