Iowa Woman Buys First Lottery Ticket, Wins $1 Million

Sometimes you just know. Angelica Chavez of Sioux City had never bought a lottery ticket before last Friday. She made the decision to buy her first ticket the day before, telling her dad, "I'm going to win something big." She was right. One million dollars right. And she'd been hanging on to the numbers she used for just the right time.

Chavez, 27, who claimed her money from the Mega Millions contest earlier today at the Iowa Lottery headquarters, used numbers she'd saved for several years. You see when she worked at a senior living center, they had a game with balls, similar to a lottery machine. Chavez wrote down a bunch of sets of six numbers that she played in the workplace game, and held on to them. She told the Iowa Lottery, "And I said one day I was going to play them and that day was on Friday."

After she got home from her job at Tyson Foods Friday night, Chavez confirmed she had the first five numbers right, but missed the Mega Ball. She wasn't the least bit surprised, though. Remember, Chavez 'expected' to win: "I had already felt that I was going to win. I put 15 instead of 25, or I would have won the whole jackpot!"

Chavez wants to save some of the money for her daughter, as she grows up. She also has her own plan for some of the money saying, "I kind of want to buy some properties and put them for rent so the money can keep running, not just stay stuck in the bank."

It sounds to me like Chavez isn't just someone with some great intuition, she's pretty darn smart, too. Congrats, Angelica!