A woman who won $100 in the lottery used the money to buy more tickets. Then she won the $169,674 jackpot.
Catherine McQueen
- A Michigan woman turned her $100 lottery winnings into a $169,674 jackpot.
- Tammie Pelton's massive win started with a prize from a free spin.
- "We are still having a hard time believing this is real," she said.
A Michigan woman turned $100 in lottery winnings into a cool $169,674 by going on to win the jackpot, according to the state's lottery provider.
Tammie Pelton, 52, won the Michigan Lottery's Fantasy 5 jackpot on September 23, according to local outlet 9 & 10 News.
Pelton started out by playing the Michigan Lottery's free online 'Spin to Win' game, which gives players a free spin once a day when they log in, per 9 & 10 News. That gave her a bonus credit.
"So I used the bonus credit to play a game online and won $100," she told Michigan Lottery Connect.
A free $100 would be a good day in any household, but Pelton spotted that the lottery's Fantasy 5 jackpot had reached more than $150,000. So she bought a few of those tickets, as well as some for the Powerball game.
"When I logged in to my account a few days later, a pop-up came up saying I'd won a $169,674 Fantasy 5 jackpot prize," she told the outlet.
She told Michigan Lottery Connect: "We are still having a hard time believing this is real."
Pelton said she had to triple-check her account balance to make sure she wasn't seeing things. "I woke up my husband and showed him the message," she added. "He was confused and asked who won, so I yelled: 'We did!'"
The Michigan Lottery's Fantasy 5 tickets are $1 each, and a jackpot win requires the player to match all five numbers. The odds of winning it are 1 in 575,757, according to the lottery organizers.
Pelton plans to invest some of the money and spend some on a vacation, Michigan Lottery Connect reported.