Lottery player finds winning ticket in purse days before deadline. ‘Are you kidding me?’
Spotting a sign about an unclaimed lottery prize, an Iowa woman made a post on Facebook hoping to get the attention of the ticket holder before the deadline to claim the thousands of dollars passed.
“That was bugging me all week and I just thought, ‘I’ve got to put something on there,” Anne Rodriguez told officials.
Mary Blumer saw Rodriguez’s post in the “People of Ankeny” Facebook group, noticing the convenience store mentioned was a location where she had purchased tickets before, so she checked her purse.
The forgotten ticket in her purse was the $20,000 winner she had planned to scan months before. She was able to claim her prize with “days to spare” thanks to the help of Rodriguez’s Facebook post.
Rodriguez told lottery officials she was shocked that the post about a winner in the March 23 Mega Millions drawing reached the ticket holder.
“I could almost cry!” she said. “I’m so happy for her.”
Without the post, the $20,000 prize would have expired on Sept. 23.
“Thank you, I owe you at least a tank of gas or something! Because without her, I would have never, never looked at those tickets,” Blumer said.
Blumer plans to use a portion of her winnings to open savings accounts for her grandchildren, according to lottery officials.
Ankeny is about a 14-mile drive north from Des Moines.
This story was originally published September 20, 2024 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Lottery player finds winning ticket in purse days before deadline. ‘Are you kidding me?’."
