Illinois Lottery Won’t Pay Out Prize Money Over $25K; Plaintiffs in Class Action Lawsuit

... #ad▼

Two lottery winners have filed a class action lawsuit against the Illinois Lottery for failing to pay prize money due to the lack of an Illinois budget. The plaintiffs are two of at least 29 people in Illinois who were looking forward to collecting winnings before the state’s budget freeze.

“The State is not paying prize money to people who won over $25,000, yet the State is continuing to sell Lottery tickets with potential winnings in excess of $25,000,” the lawsuit filed Wednesday states.

According to Thomas A. Zimmerman, Jr., attorney for the plaintiffs, “People buying Lottery tickets assume that a State-run lottery will be fair. The State has the prize money on deposit in the Lottery Fund, yet it is refusing to pay Lottery winners. Meanwhile, the State is earning interest on the unpaid prize money.”

Rich Carter, press secretary for Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger’s office states that the lottery can’t pay without a state budget. “Without a budget, we can’t, by law, make any payments on an appropriated fund without a court order or consent decree or statutory continuing appropriation,” said Carter.



Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …

Search Amazon …

Search for products sold on Amazon:

Arlingtoncardinal.com is an Amazon Associate website, which means that a small percentage of your purchases gets paid to Arlingtoncardinal.com at no extra cost to you. When you use the search boxes above, any Amazon banner ad, or any product associated with an Amazon banner on this website, you help pay expenses related to maintaining Arlingtoncardinal.com and creating new services and ideas for a resourceful website. See more info at Arlingtoncardinal.com/AdDisclosure