A lottery player came close to losing out on a life-changing sum of money after nearly throwing away the winning ticket.
Jacqueline Leigh, 60, told lottery officials that she bought a £5 ticket from a local food market but didn't think she'd won after scratching it off.
"I really was about to throw it away," she told UPI. "But I went back and looked at it again and that's when I discovered it."
Leigh was astonished when she realised that the ticket she'd almost discarded moments earlier was worth a whopping $200,000 (£180,000). "I was so excited," she said. "I think I shouted." She immediately called her family to tell them the good news and was met with disbelief.
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"I told my daughter and she said, 'Mom are you for real,'" Leigh said. The North Carolina woman said her winnings will allow her to pay off her car and clear all her bills in advance. "I've never won anything like this before," she said. "It's a blessing."
Leigh picked up her winnings from the lottery headquarters on Wednesday. After required state and federal tax withholdings, the grand total was $142,021 (£128,000).
The lottery she entered, the Hot 5's, has five top prizes of $200,000. Three of these have yet to be claimed.
The largest jackpot ever left unclaimed in the US was for $77 million in the state of Georgia. At the time, this Powerball jackpot equated to a massive £67.5 million.
The biggest unclaimed jackpot in the UK was in 2012 for a staggering £63.8 million with records showing that the Euromillions ticket was bought in Hertfordshire.
In 2018, a total of £125.1 million worth of lottery and scratch card prizes went unclaimed in the UK alone.
