Laura Spears Oakland County, Michigan nurse finds out she won $3m lottery after checking spam email folder while searching misplaced email.
A Michigan nurse has told of her shock upon discovering she had won $3 million in a state lottery after randomly checking her spam folder, which she admits never checking.
Laura Spears, 55, matched the five winning numbers – 2, 5, 30, 46 and 61 – in a New Year’s Eve drawing worth $1 million. Her good fortune tripled to $3 million thanks to a bonus called ‘Megaplier’.
The Oakland County woman said she bought a lottery ticket online ahead of the drawing and, days later, happened to be scouring her junk email in search of an unrelated email in her personal email account – when she thought in passing to check her spam folder.
‘That’s when I saw an email from the Lottery saying I had won a prize,’ she told told Michigan Lottery officials.
‘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 $3 million.’
What if she had overlooked checking her spam folder?
Added the lotto winner, ‘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.’
After claiming the prize, she said she plans to share her wealth with family and retire early. Online records show Spears working as a nurse.
‘I definitely 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,’ Spears said.
The Mega Millions jackpot was last won on Oct. 22, 2021, when a family in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. won $108 million. The current jackpot stands at $376 million.
Spears’ fortune tripled because she shelled out an extra $2 to multiply her winnings.
The current jackpot is $376 million with the next drawing set for Tuesday.
Of course, winning a large amount of money can be life-changing for anyone, but can also end up being the worse thing that ever happened to them.
