$1M Powerball Was Set to Expire in Hours – Then Winner Claimed It

Big-ticket lottery winners sometimes like to play coy and might postpone by a few days or weeks before they step up to claim their prize and turn the dream into tangible reality. 

But an Oakland County woman cut it pretty close to the chase after she claimed her $1 million lottery prize mere hours before the ticket was set to expire. The winner, identified as Theresa Lynchosky, 63, of Rochester Hills, claimed her July 14, 2025, winning ticket only recently – hours before it expired, the Michigan Lottery confirmed.

Lynchosky did share a few words as to why she had waited that long: “I decided to wait to claim the prize for personal reasons and didn’t tell anyone about the big win until last week when I told my best friend. was so happy to finally share the news with someone, and I’m even happier to be here claiming my prize after waiting a year.”

The woman won with the numbers 8, 12, 45, 46, and 63, and told the lottery that she had been a frequent Powerball player. She spent the last year getting accustomed to the fact that she had won a seven-figure prize, with the whole thing hard to believe at first.

Yet over the past months, the winner got accustomed to the idea and admitted that she felt happier for having waited all this time.