If you were lucky enough to win money playing the Illinois Lottery, you may want to redeem your tickets before July 1st, or you may have to wait a long time before getting paid.The reason, the lack of a budget in Illinois.

Illinois State Comptroller, Leslie Munger, said payouts will stop if a budget is not passed by June 30th.

You will recall back in September of 2015, when Illinois became a national laughingstock when it announced that due to the lack a budget budget, specifically, funds that were appropriated for lottery payouts, the Illinois Lottery stopped paying people who won over $25,000 in September 2015. To make matters worse, in October of last year, they stopped paying people who won as little as $600.

In December, a number of angry lottery winners filed lawsuits against the state which prompted lawmakers in Springfield to pass a law specifically appropriating $3.1 billion to pay the lottery winners and other projects. The lottery winners got paid, but here we go again. It's Groundhog Day in Illinois again.

My advice, if you have a winning lottery ticket of over $600.00 cash it in today, otherwise you may have to wait.

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