If the first few of weeks of 2018 are any indication of what the rest of the year will bring, we think Minnesota Lottery players are in for their luckiest year yet!
Since ringing in the New Year, we’ve seen a plethora of winners from all over the state—from way up north on the Iron Range to small towns in southern Minnesota—and just about everywhere in between. With over 87,000 winners in Minnesota each and every day, this isn’t surprising, but the number of BIG winners is what’s catching everyone’s attention.
It all started on January 1, 2018 when two lucky Minnesota players each won $1 million playing Minnesota Millionaire Raffle. A Hugo woman was the first to step forward to claim her $1 million prize, which she won as part of an unforgettable Christmas gift from her mom. The second million-dollar raffle winner, the DeSaer family, came forward on January 19. The lucky ticket was given to Dad, Don DeSaer, as a Christmas gift from one of his daughters, Amber DeSaer. After realizing they had the winning ticket on New Years Day, Don tried to give the ticket back to Amber, but Amber refused! Instead, Mom and Dad decided to split the $1 million between their four adult daughters.
There were over 4,000 additional Raffle winners who won prizes ranging from $100 to $100,000 and even some cool merchandise prizes, like a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee, a Jeep Wrangler, and a Sun Country airlines package to name a few.
As if two $1 million winners aren’t enough, that same week a man from Plymouth claimed a $1.2 million Gopher 5 jackpot – the 11th largest Gopher 5 jackpot of all time!
Powerball and Mega Millions made national headlines when the two jackpots combined reached over $1 billion. While both jackpots were won in other states, Minnesota had three $50,000 Powerball winners on January 6. The winning tickets were purchased in Duluth, Red Wing and Kellogg.
On January 10, Minnesota’s Powerball luck got even bigger when two tickets with Power Play each won $250,000. Gregory Adkisson of Ely claimed his Powerball winnings on January 16 and a group of 22 from the “Hibbing Courthouse Annex Pool” claimed their prize on January 19.
Also in January, the Minnesota Lottery saw two $200,000 winners from the Win Big scratch game and a $200,000 winner from the Super Triple 10’s scratch game.
These are just a few examples of Minnesotans winning big. Let’s keep the lucky streak rolling.
Cheers to a happy, safe, and (of course) lucky 2018!
