Woman finds winning lotto ticket in surprising place

Mary Peabody (right) will be able to redeem her $1,820 jackpot thanks to a few intrepid deli workers including manager Dena Thompson. Photo / Oregon Lottery

Employees at the Lucky Spot deli in Southeast Portland went above and beyond for one customer who claims she lost her winning lottery ticket there.

Mary Peabody went to the Lucky Spot deli to redeem her prize, but learned her win exceeded $600 and she would have to go through the Oregon Lottery office, according to Yahoo Lifestyle.

Peabody left the deli to claim her prize at the lottery office but accidentally left her ticket behind and grabbed the congratulatory receipt instead. It took until the following day for Mary to realise her mistake.

In hopes that the staff at Lucky Spot had found her winning ticket and put it aside for safekeeping, Mary rushed back to the deli - but no such luck.

Mary also remembered she hadn't signed the back of the ticket, meaning anyone who found it would be able to claim the $1,820 prize money.

"By law, Lottery tickets belong to the person who signs the back of the ticket," explained the Oregon Lottery, "which is why the Oregon Lottery always urges people to sign the back of their tickets as soon as possible."

Mary was "disappointed" she thought she had lost the $1,820. She went home and wrote off the prize.

However, the manager of Lucky Spot, Dena Thompson, wasn't going to give up that easily. She figured the ticket may have landed in the garbage.

Luckily the skip hadn't been emptied yet, so she and other deli members decided to get their hands dirty.

Six different "large bags" of garbage later and someone spotted the winning ticket - clean and intact. "I couldn't help thinking that this was crazy, we found it!" said Dena.

A few days later Mary Peabody returned to the deli and was shocked to have the ticket handed back to her.

"You don't expect people to do that for you," Mary said. "[Dena] was almost in tears when she told me they found the ticket."

Lottery winner Mary wasn't about to take any chances: "The first thing we did was sign it!"