Woman finds out she won $3 million lottery prize after checking her email spam folder

OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich.— A Michigan woman's search for a missing email turned into a $3 million surprise.

Laura Spears, 55, of Oakland County, was recently on the hunt for an email when she noticed one in her spam folder from the Michigan Lottery notifying her she had won a $3 million Mega Millions prize, according to the Michigan Lottery. 

Spears' ticket matched the five white balls drawn Dec. 31 — 2-5-30-46-61 — and had the Megaplier, increasing her $1 million prize to $3 million.

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Spears had purchased the ticket a few days earlier after seeing a Facebook ad that the jackpot was at a high amount. 

"I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email," she told the Michigan Lottery. "It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!"

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She recently claimed her prize and plans to share the money with family and retire earlier than planned. 

She also made sure to change her email settings.

"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.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Woman finds out she won $3 million lottery prize after checking her email spam folder