A Woman Found Out She'd Won $3M in the Lottery After Checking Her Email's Spam Folder

The search for a totally unrelated email ended in a pleasant surprise.

Imagine this: You play your local lottery on a whim and totally forget about it. A few weeks later, while you're trying to find a specific email and search your spam folder, you find a message saying that you've won $3 million.

That's exactly what happened to one lucky Michigan woman.

Laura Spears, 55, got the surprise of a lifetime when she checked her email's spam folder. According to Michigan Lottery Connect, Spears matched the five white balls needed to win the New Year's Eve drawing. Spears told the contest organizers that she "saw an ad on Facebook that the Mega Millions jackpot was getting pretty high, so I got on my account and bought a ticket."

Originally, the jackpot win was for $1 million, but she spent an extra $1 on the lottery's "Megaplier" offer, tripling her winnings to a cool $3 million.

When she saw the email telling her about her win, Spears says she was in disbelief.

"When I saw an email from the lottery saying I had won a prize, I couldn't believe what I was reading," she said. "It's all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!"

Spears plans to share her winnings with her family and retire early.

In the meantime, she's added the Michigan Lottery to her safe senders list.

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Janae Price is a News Staff Writer at Thrillist. She's a native New Yorker and loves all things cheese, K-pop, and culture. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @janae_larie.