Des Plaines woman wins $3.75 million playing Lotto

Des Plaines resident Kathryn Griffith won a $3.75 million jackpot prize with a Quick Pick Lotto ticket purchased last month, Illinois Lottery officials announced Wednesday.

The winning ticket was sold at Mike’s Liquor & Tobacco, 7108 Mannheim Road in Rosemont.

Griffith was looking for a place where she could buy lottery tickets when she noticed the Lottery pot of gold logo on the window of Mike’s Liquor and Tobacco, officials said.

“The way the day was going for me, I just knew I had to play,” Griffith said in a news release. “I was feeling lucky, so I found a place that sold the lottery. I placed a dollar on a Quick Pick and I can’t believe I won.”

Griffith matched all six numbers — 1, 4, 5, 21, 26, 29 — in the Lotto’s April 5 drawing.

“I waited to claim my ticket mainly to get financial advice,” she said in the release.

Griffith said after her husband learned of the winning ticket, “he told me to feel free to wake him up every morning with such good news.”

Griffith said she will be using her lottery win to pay off her home, buy a new car, pay off bills and secure her retirement.

The Illinois Lottery also presented Mike’s Liquor & Tobacco with a bonus check for $37,500, which is 1 percent of the prize, for selling the winning ticket.

“We’re super excited and hope this is one of many,” store manager Mike Sharma said in the release.