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‘I had no idea I was the winner’
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – An Oregon woman’s neglected stash of tickets was hiding a $1 million prize, lottery officials said Monday.
Leslie Carr, 52, of Portland, had stashed the winning raffle ticket, which was drawn March 15, in a Tupperware container with a stack of other tickets, according to Oregon officials.
Thankfully for Carr, she decided to get them scanned at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Happy Valley, where she bought the winning ticket.
“I had no idea I was the winner,” said Carr, who works as a medical receptionist. “If it weren’t for the billion-dollar Powerball winner making news, I would have forgot. We don’t check our tickets.”
After a message on the machine notified her that she needed to go to an Oregon Lottery office, she asked a staff member to double check, Oregon Lottery said.
“I heard him say, ‘Oh, I can’t cash this because your prize is worth over $1,000,’” Carr explained. “That’s when I started getting butterflies.”
Carr plans to spend the winnings on a new truck, a vacation to Hawaii, and to help pay off the mortgage on her home she shares with her husband, officials said.
Raffle prizes include the $1 million top prize, along with 300 prizes worth $500, and 1,500 prizes worth $100.
According to Oregon Lottery, Raffle offers the best odds (1 in 250,000) to win $1 million in all the Oregon Lottery games.
Officials said Oregon Lottery’s Raffle game went on sale Dec. 21, 2023, and all 250,000 tickets were sold by March 8, 2024.
