Kids & Family

Oak Park Man Wins $150K in the Illinois Lottery

Oak Park man wins $150,000 in the Illinois Lottery, plans to use the money to buy a car for his wife and put his two daughters through college.

Oak Park resident Chi Wee’s life changed when he decided to play a set of numbers from an old lottery ticket because of a "good feeling."

Wee, 57, decided to regularly play the numbers on a Lucky Day Lotto Quick Pick ticket he bought two months ago, and ended up winning a $150,000 jackpot prize in the Oct. 9 Lucky Day Lotto drawing, according to a news release from the Illinois Lottery.

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When he saw the numbers on his ticket were a perfect match he told his wife, who gave him a "blank look."  

“I thought for a second she didn’t believe me," Wee said in a statement. "But instead she hugged me tight, as if she knew I’d won.”  

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Wee bought his winning ticket at True Discount Food Mart, 1155 Garfield St. in Oak Park. The retailer will receive a $1,500 bonus, or 1 percent of the prize amount, for selling the winning ticket, according to the release.

An occasional lottery player, Wee’s advice for other Lottery players is: “Believe you can win!” 

Wee, originally from Taiwan, has worked as a shipping clerk in Illinois for over 25 years. He plans to use the winnings to buy a car for his wife and pay for college for his two daughters, according to the release.

Wee is the second Oak Park resident to win an Illinois Lottery jackpot prize in the past few weeks. An Oak Park man won $8.75 million in the Oct. 19 Lotto drawing with a Quick Pick ticket purchased at Clark Oak Park, 330 Chicago Ave. in Oak Park.  

Information courtesy of a news release from the Illinois Lottery.

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