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Lottery Jackpot Hits $55 Million in Illinois

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From United Press International

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.

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Sharp said lottery agents were handling more than 717,000 transactions an hour Thursday.

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