75-year-old didn’t trust email saying she’d won Michigan lottery. Then her phone rang

A 75-year-old Michigan woman won a six-figure prize through the state lottery — except she didn’t know she was playing, officials said.

Victoria Rudzewicz thought she had missed her shot at the Michigan Lottery’s $6 million Jackpot, she told lottery officials in a Feb. 21 news release. None of her tickets were winners, but that was about to change.

An email showed up in the White Lake woman’s inbox saying she had won a $100,000 prize.

“I was ecstatic, but I wasn’t sure if it was real,” she said.

Then her phone started ringing.

“I got a call from the Lottery shortly after receiving the email and that’s when I knew it was real,” she told lottery officials.

After winning nothing in the initial jackpot drawing, Rudzewicz’s tickets were automatically entered, unbeknownst to her, into a second chance drawing Feb. 8, the lottery said in a news release.

“I scan all of my tickets on the Michigan Lottery app to check them, but I didn’t know I was entering a second chance giveaway by scanning my non-winning $6,000,000 Jackpot tickets,” she said.

Prizes for the second chance game range from $500 to $1,000 to $10,000 to the top prize of $100,000.

“It was so exciting!” she said. “I called my daughter right away to tell her the good news.”

Rudzewicz told officials she’s going to take a trip to Florida with her daughter and save the rest of her winnings.

White Lake is about 40 miles northwest of Detroit.

This story was originally published February 21, 2023 at 1:21 PM with the headline "75-year-old didn’t trust email saying she’d won Michigan lottery. Then her phone rang."