LANSING, June 9, 2000 — Michael Doyle of Detroit was sitting on a pile of Lottery dough and didn’t know it! He matched the first five numbers in the May 5 Big Game drawing to win the $150,000 prize, but didn’t learn of his big win until weeks after the drawing occurred. That day’s winning numbers were: 6, 8, 16, 30, 32 and the Big Money Ball number was 26.

"I went into the store where I bought the ticket a couple days after the drawing and there was a WXYZ-TV 7 news camera there interviewing the store owner because the jackpot was so high," Doyle said. "I overheard the store owner talking about the $150,000 winner he had recently sold that no one had claimed yet and thought to myself, ‘I wonder if I have the winning ticket.’ I decided to pick up a winning number report while I was there so I could check my ticket once I got home."

Doyle said he put the winning number report in his wallet and headed home, but by the time he got home he forgot about his Big Game ticket.

"I intended to check the tickets when I got home but forgot about it once I got there," he said.  "I didn’t end up checking the tickets until a few weeks later!"

The winning Big Game ticket was purchased at Woodward Palmer, 5730 Woodward Ave., in Detroit. Prior to turning the winning Big Game ticket in at Lottery headquarters in Lansing, the winner said he kept it in a filing cabinet to ensure its safety. Doyle said he plans to use his winnings to pay bills and make investments.

The Big Game is a multistate lottery game in Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia. Wagers cost $1 each and tickets can be purchased at more than 6,400 Michigan Lottery retailers statewide.

Big Game drawings are conducted every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. The next Big Game drawing is tonight (Friday), June 9, with an estimated jackpot of $46 million.

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