Illinois Lottery Doomsday Looms
(CBS) -- Illinois Lottery operators are putting their foot down, amid the state budget crisis.
You may remember the IOUs the state sent out a few years ago to some lottery winners. This time around, they're taking things a step further.
CBS 2's Audrina Bigos reports.
It's never happened before but it's gotten so bad that Illinois Lottery operators are warning if the state doesn't pass a budget by tomorrow they will stop selling all Powerball and Mega Millions tickets.
In other words, you can't play if the state can't pay.
"Kill my dream, which is becoming a multi-millionaire, right?" Rico Bryan says.
Without a budget, Powerball tickets sales will stop Wednesday night, and Mega Million sales will stop on Friday night.
Business owners say no ticket sales means no commissions for them. One 7-Eleven in River North gets a cut of the hundreds of tickets sold at the store every day.
"That's going to affect so much, because people are not going to come to buy those tickets," Aruna Satia says.
Any current winning lottery ticket holders should cash in ASAP.
If there's no budget deal by the end of the week, the state will be giving out more IOUs for prizes of $25,000 and above.