Woman finds $3m lottery prize in her spam email folder

Laura Spears will now add the Michigan Lottery to her safe senders list

Laura Spears after winning $3m jackpot (Milottery Connect)

An Oakland County woman nearly missed out on a $3m (£2.2m) lottery jackpot because the email notifying her of the biggest win of her lifetime had landed in her email’s spam folder.

Laura Spears, 55, said she only discovered the email after she made the rare move of going inside the spam folder to check a missing email from somebody else.

“I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email,” she said, according to Milottery Connect.

She said it was still shocking for her to learn she actually won the prize.

Ms Spears, who reportedly works as a nurse, had purchased a Mega Millions ticket on the Michigan Lottery website for a drawing dated on 31 December 2021.

The Oakland woman matched five numbers to win $1m (£738,300), but her fortune was tripled after Megaplier multiplied her price by three.

“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,” said Ms Spears.

She had forgotten to check the draw on New Year’s eve. “A few days later, I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account,” she added.

“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 $3 million!” she said.

After she nearly missed her jackpot, Ms Spears said she was now adding the Michigan Lottery to her safe senders list “ just in case I ever get lucky enough to receive another email about a huge prize”.

The lucky winner plans to share the money with her family and intends to retire earlier than she had planned.

According to the Michigan Lottery website, the Mega Millions jackpot worth $108m (£80m) was last won by a family in Lake Havasu City, Arizona on 22 October.

The current jackpot of $376m (£278m) is set to be drawn for Tuesday.