International House of Wine & Cheese employees Landon Fischer and Sarah Mirocha pose in front of the store after learning their establishment sold a $500,000 winning Lucky Day Lotto ticket. | Provided Photo

Lottery officials announced Thursday that a convenience store in Richmond sold a winning $500,000 lottery ticket from Sunday evening’s Lucky Day Lotto drawing.

The ticket was sold at the International House of Wine and Cheese, located at 11302 Route 12 in Richmond.

The person who bought the ticket matched all five Lucky Day Lotto numbers in the Sunday evening drawing. Those numbers were 2-3-10-19-26.

The lucky Illinois Lottery player won the $500,000 jackpot prize.

“I found out our store sold a $500,000 winning lottery ticket when I got a call from an Illinois Lottery representative while I was on vacation,” said Tom Jiaras, owner of International House of Wine and Cheese, which opened in 1971.

“Everyone at our store is so excited! I’m especially happy for the lucky customer who won the jackpot. I hope they come back and tell us so we can share in their joyful moment, and maybe even get a picture together,” Jiaras said.

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Jiaras said his wine and cheese store may not look like the typical lottery retailer but they have been selling lottery tickets since they were first introduced 50 years ago.

“We’ve seen incredible changes over the decades: from the physical tickets to increasing jackpots and advancements in technology – everything has gotten better and better,” Jiaras said.

“It’s been such a joy to sell lottery tickets to our customers for so many years, and I’m excited to see how this big jackpot win may attract even more lottery customers to our store,” he added.

International House of Wine and Cheese will receive a bonus of 1% of the prize amount — $5,000.

Jiaras said this was not the first time his store has sold a big winning lottery ticket.

A $260,000 winning ticket was sold a few years ago. “The customer came in and gave us his ticket to scan and check if he had won. I said, ‘It’s you! You’re the person we’ve been looking for!,’ to which he said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said ‘Didn’t you know? You won $260,000!’”

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“He stood there, completely frozen, for five minutes. He was so blown away, he couldn’t move. It was such a funny and amazing experience to see firsthand,” Jiaras said.

Over 21,500 winning tickets were purchased for the Sunday evening Lucky Day Lotto drawing, netting players nearly $560,000, according to the Illinois Lottery.

Winners have a year from the date of the winning draw to claim their prize.

The Illinois Lottery said they encourage all winners to write their name on the back of their ticket and keep it in a safe place until they are ready to claim their prize.