Biography theater chicago illinois lottery

The Illinois Lottery is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first drawing Thursday, a pioneering gamble that has become an enduring cash cow for the state, and a shared fantasy for millions of players.

Plunk down a couple of bucks, stick a ticket in your wallet and, for the better part of a week, there’s a chance you might become a millionaire.

Just ask Michael Wittkowksi, a blue-collar guy from the Northwest Side whose life changed as a 28-year-old in 1984 when he won $40 million playing Lotto — then the largest lottery prize in U.S. history — becoming a Chicago folk hero and star of the state’s nascent numbers game.

Wittkowski, a printer by trade, parlayed his newfound riches into a surprisingly normal if well-funded life, getting married and raising three sons far from the limelight in northwest suburban Inverness.

“I’m glad it happened to me,” said Wittkowksi, 68, long retired and living quietly in the same house for 30 years. “It’s made a huge difference in all of our lives.”

While the world has changed a lot in the last half-century, the dream has lost none of its luster. The lottery is coming off a record $3.6 billion in sales in fiscal year 2023, still the most of any wagering segment in Illinois despite the advent of casinos, sports betting and thousands of video gaming terminals across the state.

The Illinois Lottery has grown exponentially since its inception in 1974, minting thousands of millionaires, generating billions in revenue and dramatically broadening its portfolio of games.

“We’ve had a huge growth spurt the last four years,” said Harold Mays, director of the Illinois Lottery. “Everybody engages with the lottery. It’s a very simple proposition.”

Instant scratch tickets accounted for $2 billion or 57% of the $3.6 billion in total Illinois lottery sales last year, according to the state’s annual report on wagering for fiscal year 20

American lottery

The Illinois State Lottery (known simply as the Illinois Lottery) is an American lottery for the U.S. state of Illinois, operated by Allwyn Illinois.

Overview

The Illinois Lottery began operations on July 1, 1974, when lotteries in the United States were confined to areas of the Northeast and Midwest.

The drawings are supervised by an independent auditor who certifies the winning results. Illinois was the only single jurisdictional state lottery to have their drawings televised nationwide (which were broadcast throughout the United States and much of Canada via WGN-TV's national superstation feed WGN America [now NewsNation]). The 9 p.m. newscast was removed from WGN America in February 2014 as they begin their transition to a general cable network.

The Illinois Lottery is one of 45 lottery jurisdictions that participate in Mega Millions and Powerball – of these jurisdictions, 44 of the 45 lotteries offer both games. The Lottery also offers Lotto with a smaller jackpot, which is drawn on Monday, Thursday and Saturday nights. Pick 3 and Pick 4 numbers are drawn twice daily. Until April 16, 2014, with the discontinuation two months before of WGN-TV's 9 p.m. newscast from WGN America, the same numbers applied to those playing the same games in neighboring Iowa; that state now draws their own numbers. Lucky Day Lotto (5/45), with a minimum jackpot of $100,000, is drawn twice a day.

In 2009, the Illinois legislature passed amendments to the Lottery Law that approved the Internet Pilot Program to launch the sale of the Mega Millions and Lotto games on the Internet. The Illinois Lottery suspended the sale of Mega Millions tickets as the state's General Assembly struggled to pass a budget including lottery funding for the 2018 fiscal year. On December 23, 2011, a U.S. Justice Department decision provided much anticipated clarity to Illinois' and other U.S. lotte

Illinois Lottery players can try their luck at the largest Fast Play jackpot in U.S. history.

The grand prize for the Ultimate Diamond Jackpot game, one of the Illinois Lottery's Fast Play games, hit $5.5 million and continues to grow, according to a news release from the Illinois Lottery.

As a progressive jackpot game, the jackpot begins at $75,000 and grows with each ticket sold across the state. With the odds of winning the top prize at 1 in 240,000, the Ultimate Diamond Jackpot game has one of the strongest odds available for a jackpot of its side, according to the Illinois Lottery.

More than 11.9 million winning Fast Play tickets have been sold already this year. As a result, Illinois Lottery players have obtained over $243.6 million in prizes. Fast Play games can be purchased in stores, online or on the Illinois Lottery app.

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The Illinois Lottery’s first drawing took place 50 years ago today, but dreams of an unexpected windfall are older than our country itself. Some of the earliest settlers in New England and even the Founding Fathers were known to organize sweepstakes to raise money for their projects.

The lottery got a bad reputation, however, after a group of men established the Louisiana State Lottery Co. in 1868. Though it quickly became one of the largest businesses in the United States, very little of the revenue actually went to charitable organizations. The only people getting rich were its organizers who pocketed the money tax-free.

Maybe that’s why it would take almost a century before another state considered hosting a lottery. New Hampshire, which had no sales or income tax, authorized a sweepstakes to raise money for education in 1963. Tickets were sold at its state-operated liquor stores for its drawings, which began in March 1964.

That same year, Illinois officials opposed the idea of operating a lottery. Illinois Retail Merchants Association President Joseph T. Meek called New Hampshire’s legalized gambling “extremely unwise and deplorable.”

So what changed? Here’s a look back at how the Illinois Lottery was founded just a decade later.

Illinois Lottery celebrates 50 years of rich history, from pingpong balls and TV drawings to minting folk-hero millionaires

June 1972: Illinois – lucky No. 7?

Six states — New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — already had lotteries when Illinois legislators considered the idea as a solution to its financial woes.

After a bill to create a state lottery passed the Illinois House 100-64 in early June 1972, the item was sent to the state’s Senate.

“There will be some winners, but there will be thousands and thousands of losers,” Rep. George Ray Hudson of Hinsdale said before the vote. “And, I suggest tha