Lottery winner couldn’t believe her eyes — so she cleaned glasses and looked again

A 69-year-old lottery player in Michigan said she usually buys Ruby Red Wild Time tickets, which offer a top prize of $500,000.

“But I hadn’t been having the best luck on it,” she told Michigan Lottery officials. So she decided to try a new game — $1,000 Large.

The $10 ticket has a grand prize worth $1 million — and the odds of winning a prize are only slightly lower than her usual game of choice. The overall odds are 1 in 3.83, as opposed to 1 in 3.34, according to the game descriptions.

She bought her $1,000 Large ticket at a Detroit convenience store, then headed home, according to an Aug. 16 news release from the Michigan Lottery.

“I scratched the ticket when I got home, and I couldn’t believe my eyes,” the Wayne County woman told lottery officials.

It appeared as if she had won $1 million.

“I took my glasses off to clean them because I thought for sure I was misreading the ticket,” the woman said. “When I put them back on and I looked the ticket over again, my eyes filled with tears of joy!”

Her prize was real, according to the release.

She recently went to claim her winnings, officials said, and was given two options. She could receive the full $1 million divided into annual payments, or she have a lump sum payment of about $693,000.

The woman chose the one-time payout, according to the release.

This story was originally published August 16, 2023 at 11:41 AM with the headline "Lottery winner couldn’t believe her eyes — so she cleaned glasses and looked again."