Michigan woman wins $1M Powerball prize after husband finds week-old ticket in coat pocket

Forgotten lottery ticket found in husband’s coat pocket yields a Powerball win for a Lansing, Michigan, family

A woman from Michigan won a million-dollar Powerball prize and she claims she always believed she would win big one day.

Ana Elizalde, 51, of Lansing, selected five lottery numbers that matched the numbers that were drawn from the Michigan Lottery’s Feb. 6 drawing.

The numbers that won her the big prize were 05, 11, 22, 23 and 69, according to a press release issued by the Michigan Lottery on Tuesday, Feb. 28.

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Elizalde claimed her prized and novelty check from the Michigan Lottery on Friday, Feb. 24.

Ana Elizalde, 51, won a $1 million Powerball prize in Michigan. She told the Michigan Lottery she and her husband always had faith they would someday win. (Michigan Lottery)

"Me and my husband buy a Powerball ticket for every drawing, and we always knew we would win big," Elizalde told the Michigan Lottery.

In early February, Elizalde played the Powerball as she usually does. She purchased her winning ticket at a Sav-Way Food Center in Lansing.

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Elizalde told the lottery board she gave her ticket to her husband for safekeeping. 

"A week after the drawing my husband found the ticket in his coat pocket and realized we had never checked it," Elizalde recalled to the Michigan Lottery. "We went to the store to scan it and got a message to file a claim. When we checked the numbers online and realized we’d won $1 million."

The Powerball is a multi-state lottery that operated in 45 states, the nation's capital and two U.S. territories. (iStock)

Elizalde said she and her husband "were in shock" when they first saw the seven-figure winning, but they were also hopeful that one day luck would be on their side.

"We always had a feeling this day would come and now that it’s here, it feels surreal," she told the Michigan Lottery. 

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The Michigan Lottery hasn’t disclosed Elizalde’s final winning after taxes.

Elizalde told the lottery board she plans to use her Powerball Prize to pay bills, her children’s education and savings

Powerball players are allowed to select five numbers from 1 to 69 for white balls and one number from 1 to 26 for the red Powerball. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

The Powerball is a multi-state lottery that's available in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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Powerball drawings are done at 10:59 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

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