She had a feeling she’d ‘win big’ Michigan lottery prize. Then she ‘started hollering’

A 59-year-old woman, an avid player of Double Diamond instant scratch game with Michigan Lottery, has been “very lucky” with her winnings.

“So I had a feeling I would win big,” she said in a Jan. 27 news release from the Michigan Lottery.

That feeling really paid off.

One morning, she said she stopped at a Shell gas station in Southfield and bought a few lottery tickets to scratch later that day.

“I was sitting in my living room scratching my tickets that night, and I scratched this Double Diamond ticket last,” she told lottery officials. “When I revealed the $1 million prize, I jumped up and started hollering!”

At first, she wasn’t convinced she had really won.

“I had my husband look the ticket over because I thought I was seeing things,” she said in the release.

But she really had won the game’s top $1 million prize.

The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, recently went to claim her prize, where she was given two options: a one-time payment worth about $693,000, or 30 annual payments worth the full amount, according to the release.

She chose the lump-sum payment, officials said, and plans to save her winnings after using some to pay bills.

“I recently retired, so this prize will provide a nice financial cushion for retirement,” she said.

If you or a loved one shows signs of gambling addiction, you can seek help by calling the national gambling hotline at 1-800-522-4700 or visiting the National Council on Problem Gambling website.

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