CHICAGO — There’s a way that you can get free lottery tickets for the billion-dollar drawing on Friday evening.

On Thursday, the Illinois Lottery announced an event in which players can grab a multitude of “Mega Millions” tickets at no cost on Friday afternoon at one of the ten “lucky” lottery stores in the Chicagoland area.

This will be done ahead of the drawing for the $1.25 billion jackpot.

The “Mega Millions Ticket Grab Challenge” will take place at the Shell Food Mart on 210 E. Ogden Avenue in Hinsdale from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday – and here’s how it will work.

Illinois Lottery officials will set up a machine full of Mega Millions tickets for a customer to enter. Once inside, the person will have five seconds to grab as many tickets as they possibly can in five seconds.

As part of the promotion, the Illinois Lottery will give away 1,200 of these tickets as a way to celebrate the $1.25 billion jackpot.

If you can’t make it to this event, there are over 7,000 Illinois Lottery locations to purchase tickets ahead of Friday’s drawing. In July 2022, two people with one ticket in Des Plaines claimed a $1.33 billion jackpot, which was the largest prize in the history of the state.