Kathy Gilroy of Villa Park — the Chicago suburb, not the Orange County burg — recently won $25,000 playing a sweepstakes game and worried about it.

Kathy Gilroy.
Kathy Gilroy. Image via YouTube.com
“I called a pastor friend, and said, ‘Oh my God, should I send it back? What do I do? Do I donate it?’” she told the Chicago Tribune. “He said, ‘Don’t feel guilty. You just got paid for all your volunteer work against gambling.’ It’s God showing his grace on me.”

Gilroy, it turns out, has been on an anti-gambling crusade since the 1990s.

“Just this year, she blew the whistle on a $1.6 million Queen of Hearts raffle put on by the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in rural Morris, forcing it to shut down hours before the planned drawing, until the raffle was properly licensed,” the paper said.

“The distinction Gilroy makes is that she was not spending her own money to gamble. She enters sweepstakes because, by state law, they must be made available free of charge.”

So the 68-year-old marketer of supplemental health insurance enters sweepstakes whenever she can.

“It’s the gambling I oppose,” she said, “not the sweepstakes.”

Not everyone sees the distinction.

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