Talk about a Thanksgiving surprise!
A Louisiana couple preparing to welcome their family for Thanksgiving was cleaning their home this week when they found a winning lottery ticket worth nearly $2 million.
Harold and Tina Ehrenberg found the $1.8 million jackpot-winning Louisiana Lottery lotto ticket on their nightstand on Saturday, Nov. 17, two weeks before their right to claim their winnings expired. The drawing for the ticket was on June 6.
“At first I thought that we might have made a mistake, misreading the numbers or the expiration date,” Harold Ehrenberg told ABC News. “So we checked it a number of times and sure enough they were the right numbers.”
Harold Ehrenberg added that he and his wife wanted to go to the lottery office right away to make sure they weren’t making a mistake, but the office was closed as it was Saturday.
Instead, Tina Ehrenberg said that she “called the winning numbers hotline over and over,” a statement from Louisiana Lottery said.
Officials said the couple discovered the ticket just in time. Even Harold Ehrenberg said that he realized the urgency with which he had to claim the prize. Prizes for draw-style games must be claimed within 180 days according to the Louisiana Lottery rules.
The couple said they plan to save the winnings — $1,274,313 after state and federal taxes — for retirement.
By: Maytinee Kramer
