IHitIt
Each year over $500M in winning lottery tickets goes unclaimed due to many reasons; mostly from players not checking the ticket! Many times a potential winner sees a news report of the major jackpot ticket selling in another town or state and they don’t even check their ticket. These tickets expire and when no one claims the prizes, the ticket holder is no longer eligible for the winnings. There are instances of major jackpots not being claimed as well as secondary jackpots of $100,000 and $250,000 not being claimed. Even if you match a few numbers, the ticket could be up to $100. All of these missing claims add up to over $500M annually.
Once a winning ticket expires, that money generally goes back to the state hosting the lottery. Expire dates vary by state. Some expire 1 year after the drawing while others expire in 180 days form the drawing.
Checking websites and newspapers can be a time consuming task and often time’s people just forget to check to see if they have won. Not all winning tickets are lost or forgotten. There have been cases of winners taking their ticket to a retailer and the computer scan miss reads the ticket and looks like a loser. Players must remember to check their numbers and get their fair share of the winnings.
IHitItBig (ihititbig.com)
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
