Just 24 hours separate a lottery winner from their unclaimed money, as the winning ticket is about to expire.
Florida lottery players are being encouraged to search their purses and wallets for a Fantasy 5 ticket purchased nearly six months ago.
The $65,000 Quick Pick ticket was purchased in May at a Shell Food Mart in Port St. Lucie.
The Florida Lottery has issued a warning that the $64,564.01 jackpot will expire on Wednesday.
Prizes must be claimed within 180 days after the appropriate draw date, which was May 26, 2023 in this case.
Since the numbers were drawn at a lunchtime drawing, the lottery organization has been looking for the owner.
According to a press statement, the winning numbers were 13, 20, 22, 32, and 35.
Even those who are skeptical are advised to double-check their data.
Any Florida Lottery store can verify the ticket, but the Fantasy 5 top prize must be redeemed at a Florida Lottery district office.
Every year, billions of dollars in lottery wins go unclaimed.
A Mega Millions winner in Ohio won and then lost $4 million after failing to claim it before the expiration date.
Similarly, when a $2 million Powerball win remained unclaimed in Iowa, lottery authorities were obliged to go on a manhunt.
According to lottery expert Brett Jacobson, many secondary prize ticket holders are unaware they have won.
Secondary rewards are awarded for tickets that include a portion of the jackpot numbers but not all of them.
Jacobson pointed out that 115 $1 million rewards were unclaimed in 2015.
Why do millions of lottery winnings go unclaimed each year?
It sounds unfathomable: someone buys a lottery ticket, it turns out to be worth a fortune, and they never collect their prize.
“Even if you don’t win the jackpot, many games have numerous other prize levels,” Mega Millions lead director and Maryland Lottery and Gaming director Gordon Medenica said. “While most unclaimed prizes tend to be for much smaller amounts, we still encourage our players to always check their tickets.”
Although $1 million is not a small sum, it pales in contrast to certain Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots that have yet to be collected by winners.
They vary from a $16.5 million award in 2013 (representing one-third of a $50 million jackpot divided three ways) to a $77.1 million payout in 2011, with the winning ticket purchased in Georgia. Aside from the top prizes, there are smaller sums that might go unclaimed due to the loss of a ticket, failing to examine the winning numbers, or other blunders.
In addition to multi-state games, there are state-specific lotteries with unclaimed awards. According to the state lottery’s most recent annual report, more than $59 million in rewards remained unclaimed in North Carolina in fiscal years 2019 and 2020. According to published accounts, no one stepped forward in California in 2016 with a winning ticket for a single lottery prize totaling $63 million.
Each state that plays in Powerball and Mega Millions has its own set of laws about how long winners have to collect their winnings. Some states allow three or six months, while others, such as Rhode Island, allow one year from the date of the drawing.
Every year, millions of dollars in lottery jackpots go unclaimed. According to CNBC, around $119 million in Mega Millions and Powerball prizes will go unclaimed in 2022. A ticket may go unclaimed for a variety of reasons, including misplacement or destruction, or the person just not knowing they won.
And, because the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million, many individuals do not bother to verify their lottery ticket after purchasing one. The ticket may have even been given to someone who hasn’t bothered to check it.
The winner may be uneasy and unsure of how to handle the circumstances. If given the option, some lottery winners would like to remain unknown. Fortunately, Illinois jackpot winners of $250,000 or more can request anonymity, but other Mega Millions lottery jurisdictions compel jackpot winners to be publicly acknowledged.
What happens to unclaimed winnings?
So, what happens to the unclaimed prizes? In general, the money is returned to the states that sold the tickets.
The rest is up to the state’s laws for unclaimed lottery winnings. Some laws require that the money be returned to players in the form of extra awards or second-chance competitions. In other cases, the unclaimed funds may be used for certain objectives, such as education financing.
Because the Mega Millions lottery is conducted by all 45 participating states, if a lottery ticket remains unclaimed, each state that participates will get a percentage of the winning amount. The winning state receives a greater share and can select how to spend the money.
Each state often has its own local regulations governing how returned lottery wins must be distributed, whether via charity or to help support future lotteries or second-chance games. Each state has its own regulations about how long the winner has to claim their prize.
In Illinois, the winner has a year to collect the prize and 60 days to decide whether they want the money in a single amount or in annual increments.
Illinois lottery director Harold Mays asked residents to examine their tickets in a public announcement. Because the ticket was picked in July, the lucky winner has until July 2023 to redeem their prize.
