Aurora woman scratches off $1 million-winning lottery ticket

An Aurora woman recently scratched her way to a $1 million prize in the Illinois Lottery.

Antoinette ‘Toni’ Green won the top prize on a $10 Monopoly 50X scratch-off ticket she purchased at Ruby’s Liquor at 1535 Butterfield Road in Aurora.

She’s already started paying her newfound fortune forward, she said in a news release.

“I’ve given away over $100,000 already,” Green said. “When I was blessed with this prize, I knew I was finally in a position to give back, to help my friends and family, and to pay it forward.”

Green said she gets joy out of seeing other people’s happiness.

“The other day I overheard a young woman who could only afford a gallon of gas, and I paid the clerk to fill up her tank,” she said. “It’s not about what you can do for yourself, but what you can do for others.”

Ruby’s Liquor owner Anup Singh said Green has won a few smaller prizes at his store.

“My son, Jas, was working the day she won the million-dollar prize,” Singh said in the release. “He said she scratched the ticket and started screaming, ‘Oh my gosh!’ She then had him scan the ticket multiple times, and sure enough — the $1 million prize was real.”

For selling the winning ticket, Ruby’s Liquor will receive a bonus of 1% of the prize amount, or $10,000.

More than 36 million Illinois Lottery Instant Tickets have been sold so far this year, netting players over $926 million in prizes.