In late March 2024 the Mega Millions jackpot climbed past $1 billion, and Donald Gant of Bartlett, Illinois, did what people do in every workplace in America when that happens. He asked his coworkers if they wanted to go in together.
Thirty-nine of them said yes. On Tuesday, March 26, 2024, on his way to work, Gant bought the pool’s ticket at RT 59 Gasoline, 1100 W. Sterns Road, in Bartlett. That night the ticket matched five of the numbers drawn, which in Mega Millions pays $1 million.
What happened next
Gant told NBC Chicago his phone kept going all morning as coworkers called. On Wednesday he went back to the station to meet an Illinois Lottery representative, who verified that the ticket matched five numbers, and to thank the clerk who sold it.
The prize is split evenly among the 40 participants, Gant said: $25,000 each, before tax. He said he would give ten percent of his share to his church, set some aside for his first grandchild, and help his son and daughter-in-law buy a home. NBC Chicago reported the story on March 27 and 28, 2024.
What went right
One organizer, one ticket, one purchase. Gant proposed the pool, collected the group, bought the ticket and held it. Forty people and one piece of paper is a clean chain of custody.
The lottery verified the ticket before anything else. Gant’s first move was to have an official confirm the match in person. Establish the fact, then make plans.
An even split, stated out loud. Forty equal shares at $25,000 is a sentence everyone can check in their head.
What could have gone wrong
A pool that comes together in days, with 40 people, for one drawing, is the hardest kind to keep straight. Who said yes but never paid? Who handed cash to a friend to pass along? Who was out sick on Tuesday and assumed they were in? The reports suggest none of that happened here. But the only thing standing between this story and a courtroom story was 40 people’s shared memory of a Monday and a Tuesday.
The one lesson for your pool
A pool that forms in a week needs its record built in a day, and the record has to exist before the ticket does.
In a ShareTheWinning pool, Gant’s Monday looks like this: create the pool, set the share price, share a link or a six-character code with the department. Each coworker joins, picks their shares and accepts a short agreement. Each one marks their payment, and Gant confirms it as the cash arrives. Before he leaves for the gas station, the round locks: 40 names, 40 confirmed payments, one snapshot nobody can edit. He photographs the ticket into the pool before the drawing. When five numbers match, the pool already knows who was in, who paid, what each share is, and which ticket is the pool’s.
The generosity in Gant’s plans is the part of this story worth remembering. The record is the part worth copying.
Read next
Office pool rules that stop arguments covers the deadline to pay and latecomers. How a pool claims a prize explains how a group splits the tax paperwork. In Illinois: The pool agreement names who claims. The Illinois Lottery publishes a group claim process: from $600 up to $1 million one member claims and files Form 5754 listing every member's share, and the lottery pays each member listed; at $1 million or more the group claims in its own name with a written agreement to share, signed by all members and dated before the ticket, plus Form 5754. (11 Ill. Adm. Code 1770.190, checked Oct 8, 2026) Our Illinois page lists the state’s withholding, deadline and publicity rules with their sources. The Journey walks a pool from the latest drawing to a settled round.
