How lottery prizes go unclaimed: Why are billions of dollars not claimed?
Why lottery prizes worth billions of dollar go unclaimed
It would be surprising how often players do not do that.
It's probable that the person who bought the Powerball winning ticket to Wednesday's jackpot of $758.7 Million in Chicopee Massachusetts will be coming forward to claim their prize cash.
In the 15 years since, five winners of winning tickets have not been able to claim their Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot prizes.
These unclaimed prizes can range from $31,000,000 to $77,000,000 for a Queens ticket purchased in New York in August 2006 to $77,000,000 to a Georgian winning ticket purchased there in June 2011. These prizes have expired so anyone who finds the winning tickets today would be out of luck. The winner of the Mega Millions drawing Aug. 11, 2017 for $393 million, who still has plenty time to collect, is not included in the five unclaimed prizes.
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However, there are rare cases where unclaimed jackpots have not been claimed. Although big winners almost always receive their winnings, some do it through trusts or other ways to keep their identities secret from the public.
In 2003, there were 384 Mega Millions winners and Powerball winner. Only five winners went unclaimed, which means that 98.7% of the prize money was collected.
Related: We have the winner! Massachusetts ticket wins largest U.S. lottery jackpot
Expert lottery player Brett Jacobson says that each year millions of dollars in lottery prizes go unclaimed. Jacobson explained that many ticket holders don’t know they have won secondary prizes. These prizes are given to tickets with certain but not all of the jackpot numbers. You can win anything from $1 to get the Mega Millions number correct, or even $1 million. Powerball Wednesday had $135 Million in prizes due to 9.4,000,000 other ticket buyers that didn't win it.
Jacobson estimated that $1 million worth of prizes went unclaimed in 2015, based upon data he obtained from all state lottery organizations.
Many people forget to verify if they are eligible for any other prizes. People assume that there is no winner, for example, if they haven't bought their ticket in Chicopee (Massachusetts) this week. When the lottery rolls over because there is no winner, they don’t bother to verify if they have a secondary win. Unclaimed Lottery Jackpot Controversy - Is There A Solution?
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