Lottery Jackpot Hits $55 Million in Illinois
The Illinois lottery jackpot jumped an additional $5 million on Thursday to $55 million, approaching California’s record U.S. lottery prize of $61.98 million with two days left before Saturday’s drawing, officials said.
The Illinois jackpot has risen $27 million since Saturday, when, for the third straight week, no one picked the six winning numbers from a field of 54. The payoff for last week’s drawing would have been $28 million.
“Lotto sales have broken records for four straight days, enabling us to boost the jackpot . . . and we hope to see more of the same, as Friday and Saturday are traditionally our strongest days,” lottery director Sharon Sharp said.
Sharp said lottery agents were handling more than 717,000 transactions an hour Thursday.
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