A Gratiot County woman said winning a $215,012 Fantasy 5 jackpot from the Michigan Lottery is a “gift from heaven.”
The 61-year-old player, who chose to remain anonymous, matched the Fantasy 5 numbers drawn on Dec. 7 – 01-04-08-17-23 – to win the jackpot. She bought her winning ticket online at MichiganLottery.com.
“I always play Fantasy 5 and Lotto 47 online, I play the same numbers I’ve been playing for 30 years,” she said. “On Friday night, I checked my email a couple hours after the drawing and saw an email from the Lottery that instructed me to log in to claim a prize.
“I’ve gotten those emails before, but this one was different because it didn’t list an amount. When I logged in to my account, I told my husband: ‘I think I just won the jackpot while we were watching TV!’”
The lucky player visited Lottery headquarters Monday to claim the big prize. With her winnings she plans to pay bills and use the remainder for her retirement.
“I’ve been retired for a few years, and this really helps me feel more secure than I did before. It was totally unexpected,” the player said.
Each Fantasy 5 play is only $1. For an additional $1 per play, EZmatch may be added to a Fantasy 5 ticket, giving players a chance to win up to $500 instantly. Fantasy 5 players select five numbers from one to 39. Players who match all five Fantasy 5 numbers drawn win a jackpot that starts at $100,000. Fantasy 5 drawings are held seven days a week at 7:29 p.m. Tonight’s Fantasy 5 jackpot is $100,000.
Michigan Lottery players have a chance to win up to $500,000 instantly playing online. Players also may win prizes ranging from $1 up to multimillion dollar jackpots playing Powerball, Mega Millions, Lotto 47, and Fantasy 5 online. Through its online platform, the Lottery offers players more than 50 different games with plays ranging in price from 5 cents to $20.
More than 997,000 players have registered to play the Lottery’s online games, which were launched in 2014. For more information or to play online, visit http://bit.ly/MSLOnlineGames.
In 2017, Lottery players won more than $535 million playing games online.
