The 5-Step Checklist You Should Follow After You Win A Lottery Prize

Mega Millions $1 Million winner Fred Morgan made sure no-one would find his winning ticket.

Winning the jackpot is fun. But it also has big responsibilities to go along with it.

And one of those is keeping the winning ticket safe until you can get it to the lottery headquarters and claim your millions.

Michigan postal worker Fred Morgan ended up hiding his Mega Millions tickets in the pantry.

Morgan and his wife hid the winning ticket in various spots around their home while they put together a financial plan before claiming the prize. It ended up in the flour jar.

Fred Morgan bought his winning ticket at the Mobil gas station located at 25828 Ford Road in Dearborn Heights.

“We watched that ticket carefully,” said Morgan. “We thought somebody may look in the sugar jar, but no one would ever check for anything valuable in the flour."

Want to know where the majority of women put their winning ticket? 

In their bra!

Here are 21 other places you can put them until that exciting hour arrives:

• In the pocket of a coat hanging in your wardrobe. 
• Buried in the garden. 
• Inside a false pipe in the basement.
• In a hollowed out space in furniture. 
• Behind baseboards. 
• Under floorboards. 
• Inside toys in your children's bedroom. 
• Inside a book. Remember the page number! 
• In the back of a framed picture, between the picture and the backing board. 
• Rolled up inside a coffee cup, on a top shelf. 
• Under a home entertainment center. Use a shifting trolley to lift it. 
• Inside fake electrical outlets. 
• In a CD/DVD case. 
• Taped to your chest. 
• Inside the top of a hollowed-out door. 
• Buried in house plant soil in a plastic bag.
• Inside the service panel of your washing machine or dryer. 
• Taped under low fixtures, shelves etc. 

And don't forget to sign your ticket first. When Fred found that his ticket wouldn't work in the self-scanner, he took it to the counter where the clerk told him what to do first.

"I asked the clerk to check it for me and he said ‘it looks like you’ve got something here, you’d better sign it," said a flabbergasted Morgan.

Here's a quick 5-step checklist that might help until you get to the lottery headquarters:

1. Sign it with your name and address immediately. 

2. Take a photo of both sides of the ticket. 

3. Put the ticket in a sealed plastic bag. 

4. Keep it on you. Some winners tape the ticket to their body. 

5. Tell no-one. The fewer people who know, the better.