Wife wakes sleeping husband after winning big jackpot in Michigan. ‘He was confused’

A few days after buying Fantasy 5 tickets for a recent drawing, a Michigan woman signed into her online lottery account and realized she had won big.

“A pop-up came up saying I’d won a $169,674 Fantasy 5 jackpot prize,” Tammie Pelton, of Cheboygan, told Michigan Lottery officials.

But the 52-year-old woman could not believe it.

“I had to triple check my account balance to make sure I wasn’t seeing things!” she recalled, per the Oct. 5 news release. When she finally realized she really did win the Fantasy 5 jackpot, it was time to wake up her sleeping husband.

“I woke up my husband and showed him the message,” Pelton told lottery officials. “He was confused and asked who won, so I yelled: ‘We did!’”

She had matched the five numbers — 06-11-24-29-35 — during the Sept. 23 Fantasy 5 drawing, according to the release. The odds of matching all five numbers is one in 575,757, according to the game’s description.

Pelton plans to use her winnings to go on a trip and invest, officials said.

“We are still having a hard time believing this is real,” she said when claiming her prize money.

This story was originally published October 5, 2023 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Wife wakes sleeping husband after winning big jackpot in Michigan. ‘He was confused’."