Couple Is $1.3M Richer After Pre-Thanksgiving Cleanup

They found a lottery ticket 2 weeks away from expiring
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 23, 2018 2:56 AM CST
Couple Is $1.2M Richer After Pre-Thanksgiving Cleanup
Harold and Tina Ehrenberg.   (Louisiana Lottery)

A Louisiana couple found something to be very thankful about while cleaning their house to prepare for Thanksgiving guests. Harold and Tina Ehrenberg discovered some forgotten lottery tickets on their nightstand, including a winning Louisiana Lotto ticket worth $1.8 million, NPR reports. "We kept checking the numbers again and again," Harold says. The Mandeville couple then started to worry that the ticket for the June 6 drawing had already expired, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

Louisiana lottery rules state that prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing, so the couple was able to collect their prize—but they would have been out of luck if it had languished on the nightstand for another two weeks. After state and federal taxes, the prize they collected this week came to $1,274,313, which they plan to save for retirement. "We don’t have any plans to buy anything crazy or go on any big trips," Tina said on a visit to Louisiana Lottery headquarters. Harold added: "The most fun is going to be depositing that check!" (If it hadn't suddenly started raining, this man wouldn't have bought a $343 million Powerball winner.)

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