$1 million lottery winning ticket discovered weeks later by mistake

An Oregon Lottery Raffle ticket worth $1 million spent weeks stored in a Tupperware container with a Portland woman’s other lottery tickets before the Powerball jackpot reminded her to check them.

Leslie Carr, 52, told Oregon Lottery officials she brought the stack of tickets from her Tupperware container to the Fred Meyer store in Happy Valley after news of the recent Powerball jackpot reminded her she had several unchecked tickets.

The very last ticket in the stack, for the March 15 Raffle, caused the machine to display a message Carr didn’t understand, so she asked the store clerk for help.

“I heard him say, ‘Oh, I can’t cash this because your prize is worth over $1,000,'” she said. “That’s when I started getting butterflies.”

Carr’s ticket, bought from the same Fred Meyer store, was a $1 million winner.

“I had no idea I was the winner,” the player said. “If it weren’t for the billion dollar Powerball winner making news, I would have forgot. We don’t check our tickets.”

Carr said winning is a “dream come true,” and her plans include paying off her mortgage, buying a new truck and taking a vacation to Hawaii.