THEY CLEANED UP: New Orleans couple finds $1.8 million Lotto ticket

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A Mandeville couple found $1.8 million while cleaning their house for the holidays.

That money was in the form of a Lotto ticket.

“We have family coming into town for Thanksgiving, so I was cleaning up the house and found a few Lottery tickets on my nightstand that we hadn’t checked,” Tina Ehernberg recalled during the couple’s trip to Lottery headquarters on Nov. 19.

She and her husband, Harold, visited the lottery’s website to see if they were winners and realized one Lotto ticket matched all of the numbers listed.

The Ehrenbergs claimed their prize just in time, as the giant jackpot-winning ticket was set to expire only two weeks later.

Prizes for draw-style games must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing in which the prize was won.

The winning ticket was purchased at International Market on Barron St. in Metairie. The store received a one-time selling bonus of $17,948.07, which is one percent of the prize.

The winning numbers for the June 6 Lotto drawing were 03-07-30-31-35-38.