75-year-old didn’t trust email saying she’d won Michigan lottery. Then her phone rang

A 75-year-old Michigan woman won a six-figure prize through the state lottery — except she didn’t know she was playing, officials said.

Victoria Rudzewicz thought she had missed her shot at the Michigan Lottery’s $6 million Jackpot, she told lottery officials in a Feb. 21 news release. None of her tickets were winners, but that was about to change.

An email showed up in the White Lake woman’s inbox saying she had won a $100,000 prize.

“I was ecstatic, but I wasn’t sure if it was real,” she said.

Then her phone started ringing.

“I got a call from the Lottery shortly after receiving the email and that’s when I knew it was real,” she told lottery officials.

After winning nothing in the initial jackpot drawing, Rudzewicz’s tickets were automatically entered, unbeknownst to her, into a second chance drawing Feb. 8, the lottery said in a news release.

“I scan all of my tickets on the Michigan Lottery app to check them, but I didn’t know I was entering a second chance giveaway by scanning my non-winning $6,000,000 Jackpot tickets,” she said.

Prizes for the second chance game range from $500 to $1,000 to $10,000 to the top prize of $100,000.

“It was so exciting!” she said. “I called my daughter right away to tell her the good news.”

Rudzewicz told officials she’s going to take a trip to Florida with her daughter and save the rest of her winnings.

White Lake is about 40 miles northwest of Detroit.