$10M lottery ticket sold at convenience store in Rockford; prize claimed

Rock River Current
Get our new mobile app

ROCKFORD — A winning scratch-off lottery ticket worth $10 million was sold this week at a convenience store on the city’s west side, the Illinois Lottery announced Thursday.

Stop N Shop, a family-owned store at 2501 North Huffman Blvd., sold what is the first top prize in the new $10,000,000 Bankroll game. The game, which launched in November, has three $10 million top prizes and 15 $1 million prizes. The winner, who has not been identified publicly, recently claimed their prize, the Lottery said in an email to the Rock River Current.

“We’ve sold a few big winning tickets before, ranging from $100,000 to $900,000,” Raj Patel, manager of Stop N Shop, said in a news release. “I kept saying, ‘The next one has to be a million-dollar winner,’ but I never in a million years expected it to be worth $10 million.”

The store will receive a selling bonus of 1% of the prize amount, meaning $100,000 will go to Stop N Shop.

“My family has proudly owned this store for over 25 years, and we’re lucky to have such a nice, loyal customer base. In fact, we know most of our customers by name,” Patel said. “That’s why it’s so surprising we haven’t figured out who the lucky $10 million winner is yet, but we’re hopeful they’ll stop by and share the big news with us soon.”

Patel said customers were excited to learn such a large prize was sold at the store.

“We’re going to use a portion of the bonus to give back to our employees, who are such an important part of our success,” he said in the news release. “We also plan to invest in some much-needed upgrades to the store. And this summer, we’re hoping to host a fun celebration to thank our loyal customers—so stay tuned for that.”

More than 21.5 million winning Illinois Lottery instant tickets have been sold so far this year, generating more than $568 million in prizes.