I found a $3million lottery prize in my email SPAM folder – how I almost missed out on my massive jackpot win

AN Oakland County, Michigan woman found a $3million lottery prize in her spam email and almost missed out on the massive jackpot.

Laura Spears purchased a Mega Millions ticket for the December 31 drawing through the Michigan Lottery website.

“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,” Spears told WXYZ Detroit.

The woman claims to have been checking her account for a missing email.

She then checked her spam folder and found a different message – an email from the Michigan Lottery alerting her of her winnings.

Spears had matched all five white balls for a prize worth $1million.

But that’s not all.

She also had the Megaplier which was worth three times the winning amount for a grand total of $3million.

The Megaplier feature is offered in most states and allows players the chance to boost non-jackpot prizes by two, three, four, or five times for an additional $1 per play.

The Megaplier is drawn before the five white balls every Tuesday and Friday night.

According to the Mega Millions website, 15 balls are in the Megaplier pool. Five balls are marked with 2X, six with 3X, three with 4X, and one with 5X.

The maximum prize would be $5million, awarded to a player who matches all five white balls and the 5X Megaplier.

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The odds of winning the $3million prize that Spears won is 1 in 2.5, according to the Mega Millions site.

Oftentimes, lottery prizes go unclaimed. This is due to misplaced or lost lotto tickets, or a failure to check existing tickets for winning numbers.

Some folks also don’t realize they’ve won a secondary or lesser prize if they’ve not won a jackpot.

In fact, according to lottery expert Brett Jacobson, there was $2.89 billion in unclaimed lottery prizes from June 2016 to June 2017, CNN reports.

Luckily, thanks to her spam email folder, Spears won’t join that statistic.

“It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!,” Spears told WXYZ Detroit.

Spears reportedly plans to share her prize money with her family. She’s also planning on retiring early.