Top 6 unclaimed lottery prizes

Six cases when people didn’t claim for the lottery prize

Have you ever heard it?

Have you ever heard about something like this? Sounds unbelievable but is real. There have been some lottery winners who didn’t claim their prize. Ridiculous, maybe, but it is true. On March 4, 2019, the incredible $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot Fun88 was finally claimed! It was the second largest jackpot in history that fell in October 2018.

The winner, whose ticket was purchased in America, did not claim his prize for nearly five months, and only did so on day 132 of the maximum 180 days he had to collect it. Luckily, the winner came forward just in time to claim his lottery winnings in a lump sum cash payment of $877 million.

The winner's name or whereabouts are currently unknown due to his request to remain anonymous. Unlike this lucky winner who managed to cash in his incredible $1.5 billion jackpot at the last minute, here's a list of the largest unclaimed lottery tickets in history to remind you to make sure you keep your tickets safe and check them twice before discarding them!

Top 6 unclaimed lottery jackpots

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• EuroMillions - £64 million The next unclaimed lottery ticket comes from the United Kingdom. And it's actually the largest unclaimed EuroMillions prize ever. The winning ticket was purchased at a store in the Stevenage and Hitchin area and despite numerous appeals, including a billboard campaign to encourage the player to come forward, no one claimed the prize.
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• The £64 million jackpot, unfortunately, expired on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 after exceeding the 180-day limit - this incredible grand prize was won by two winning tickets in the June 8 draw, which had a rollover of £127 million! Fortunately, the owner of the second winning ticket from Belgium claimed his half of the £64 million prize. As for the other ticket sold in England, the winnings were donated to the National Lottery for Good Causes, which awards unclaimed money to various charities throughout the UK.
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• Powerball - $77 million A player from Georgia must have been sad to learn that he lost a $77 million Powerball jackpot! The unlucky winner played the Powerball Lottery at a truck stop in Tallapoosa, Georgia, for the June 29, 2011 Powerball drawing.
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• Apparently, 180 days was not enough, and the ticket finally expired in December 2011. This lost jackpot set a record, as it became the state's largest unclaimed jackpot since the Georgia lottery was established in 1993. Never miss out on claiming a lottery prize with our article on How to Cash in the Powerball.
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• Mega Millions - $68 million  The third largest unclaimed prize was a ticket valued at $68 million, which was purchased in Queens, New York for the December 24, 2002 drawing. Unfortunately, this Mega Millions prize went unclaimed until it passed its expiration date.
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• However, the story doesn't end there. A full year later, in 2003, a man named Fritzner Bechette went before lottery officials and claimed that he was the lucky winner of last year's Christmas Eve drawing. Fritzner filed suit in Queens Supreme Court against the New York State Lottery saying he had been trying to claim his $68 million jackpot since the day after the results were announced in December 2002. As a result, he sued the New York Lottery for the $63 million jackpot he lost.
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• What was the reason? His winning lottery ticket disappeared in an "unrecoverable situation." Of course! After conducting a long investigation, officials discovered (or failed to find) that there was no ticket matching Fritzner's description on file with the New York State Lottery or where he claimed he purchased the $68 million ticket.
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• Maybe next time you can ask yourself the question: how do I know if I won something in Mega Millions without having to resort to claiming tickets that aren't yours? Fun fact: 3 of the 4 unwinnable Mega Millions tickets were purchased in Queens and Brooklyn counties, New York. The prizes were $68 million, $46 million and $31 million. Coincidence? Maybe not!
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• SuperLotto Plus - $63 million  In February 2016, a $63 million SuperLotto Plus ticket ran out of time after the 180-day deadline to claim a lottery prize. Finally, a Los Angeles, California resident claiming to be the lucky winner came forward to collect her prize.
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• Brandy Milliner claimed she purchased the winning ticket on August 8, 2015. After submitting his winning ticket to lottery officials, he received a congratulatory note. The second time he was contacted, instead of receiving his $63 million jackpot, Lottery officials told him that payment would be impossible due to the condition of the ticket.
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• After investigating the situation, they found that Milliner's ticket did not match the winning ticket at all, as it was purchased on a different date and at a different store. Nice try buddy! Even with all the evidence against him, Milliner remains convinced that the jackpot belongs to him.
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• In 2017, he said in an interview that he will continue to pursue legal action in any way possible to obtain the jackpot he claims is his. Unfortunately, this "unclaimed" lottery ticket will probably never find the rightful owner.
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• Powerball - $51.7 million  In September 2002, a player from Indiana near Indianapolis International Airport won a $51.7 million jackpot at a Crystal Flash station.
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• This would be the first time since the Powerball Lottery was established in 1992 that a jackpot prize would go unclaimed. The winning ticket that went unclaimed was half of a $103 million jackpot.
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• The other half was fortunately claimed by a Pennsylvania player. In an effort to find the winner, the Indiana lottery office decided to air commercials and hold events at the store where the ticket was purchased for the winner to come forward. No luck. The lucky (or unlucky) winning ticket finally expired before anyone could claim it.
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• Mega Millions - $46 million There's either a conspiracy or something in the water because some of the largest unclaimed prizes seem to come from the state of New York! In this case, a very unlucky Brooklynite missed out on a $46 million jackpot in the April 25, 2006 Mega Millions drawing. In New York, unclaimed prize money is returned to the state prize pool.
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• Occasionally, unclaimed lottery prizes are used to boost jackpots, promotions and special drawings.
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Why billions in prize winnings go unclaimed each year

Every year, figures of huge sums of unclaimed lottery winnings are published around the world. Americans, for example, lose around $2 billion each year in unclaimed prizes with $103 million lost in New York alone in 2015. Camelot stated that between 2017 and 2018, approximately £122.5 million in lottery winnings went unclaimed by UK citizens. It is hard to believe why people do not claim their lottery winnings.

One of the most common reasons why prizes go unclaimed is that when people see that they didn't win the jackpot, they automatically assume that they didn't win any lottery prizes - even if they match a few numbers, they could still win big secondary prizes!

Also, when people see that someone else won the jackpot, they are more likely to get so discouraged that they don't even check to see if they won smaller prizes. We think this is a big mistake because secondary prizes can go from thousands to millions! Another reason billions of dollars in prizes are lost every year is that people lose or throw away their tickets by mistake!

This happens much more often than you think. With our busy lives, people barely remember when the drawing is. This point reminds us of the advantage of playing lotteries online where you can scan your ticket into your personal account. This means that you won't even be able to lose your ticket if you wanted to.

You can also receive email and SMS reminders about draw times, results and if you have won any lottery prizes. Now that you've seen how much money you stand to lose, maybe think twice before you throw away the "paper" and be sure to write a reminder of the draw date.

Or, you can simply play lottery online and buy official tickets for your favorite lottery at FUN88 where you can relax and let us send you your winnings. The choice is yours!

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