The Elk River resident had the ticket in his glovebox.

Minnesota Lottery

An Elk River man has found himself a multimillionaire after winning $21.6 million in Lotto America's Wednesday draw.

Jeffrey Love bought the winning ticket at a Holiday in Ramsey, matching five winning numbers plus the Star Ball to win the jackpot.

According to the Minnesota Lottery, he was on his way to work Friday when he remembered to check the lottery ticket he'd left in his car glovebox, taking it to a store to get scanned.

When the scanner told him to contact Minnesota Lottery to claim the prize, he checked his numbers on his phone and realized they matched, before calling his wife Vickie to tell her: "We have a situation."

He wanted his wife to check the numbers herself, not trusting what he was seeing, and once she confirmed it after looking "eight or 10 times," they took the day off work and headed to the Minnesota Lottery office in Roseville.

"I drive by the lottery office every day on my way to work and always say, ‘One day … one day,'" he said.

He now has the choice of taking the jackpot as an annuity, paying out 30 times over 29 years, or can take it was a lump sum of more than $14 million, which will be around $10 million after tax.

It's only the third time the Lotto America jackpot has been won since it launched on Nov. 12, 2017, and the second time a Minnesotan has won it.

The Kujava family of Badger shared a $22.8 million jackpot won on March 14, 2018.