Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Guardian staff

Michigan woman checks spam folder and learns she won the lottery

Lottery tickets at a convenience store in Illinois on 6 January 2021.
Lottery tickets at a convenience store in Illinois on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP

A woman in Michigan checked her spam email folder – and found out she had won a $3m lottery prize.

“I saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so I got on my account and bought a ticket,” Laura Spears, 55 and from Oakland county, said in a release from the Michigan Lottery.

“A few days later, I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account.

“That’s when I saw an email from the lottery saying I had won a prize. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my lottery account to confirm the message in the email.

“It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3m.”

Spears in fact won $1m on her original ticket but had paid another $1 to add a “Megaplier”, a gambit the Michigan Lottery said can multiply prizes up to five times.

Spears said she will retire earlier than planned, and will share her winnings with family members.

She also said she had “added the Michigan Lottery to my safe senders list just in case I ever get lucky enough to receive another email about a huge prize”.

The lottery operator was keen to emphasize that a huge prize is now on offer in the Mega Millions draw, which operates in 45 US states, Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands.

“The Mega Millions jackpot was last won on 22 October 2021,” the operator said, “when a family in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, won $108m. The current jackpot stands at $376m.”

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.