A Michigan woman thought she was the victim of a prank when she received a call informing her she won $100,000 in a second-chance lottery game.
It was not a joke.
The woman, from Macomb County, won the prize playing the Michigan Lottery’s $300 million Diamond Riches Second Chance game, lottery officials said. The winner, who wished to remain anonymous, was selected in a random drawing on Nov. 16.
The winner earned entries into the giveaway by scanning non-winning tickets from the promotion on the Michigan Lottery app, the Macomb Daily reported.
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“I saved up a bunch of my non-winning $300,000,000 Diamond Riches tickets and scanned about 100 of them on the last day of the promotion,” the woman said in a statement. “When I got the call informing me that I’d won the $100,000 prize, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. After talking with the lottery employee and realizing that I’d really won, I was completely stunned.”
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The woman recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim the big prize. She said she plans to use the money to pay bills and then save the remaining balance, the Daily reported.
The drawing on Nov. 16 was the 10th and final second-chance drawing, lottery officials said. Each drawing awarded one $100,000 winner and five $10,000 winners. Twenty people were awarded $1,000, while 60 others cashed in $500.
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“Winning has been such a surreal feeling,” the woman said in a statement. “The past few weeks I have reread the email from the Lottery informing me of the prize multiple times waiting for it to sink in.”