A lotto ticket worth $24.1 million was found in New York State just 48 hours before the ticket was set to expire. The ticket was discovered in a shirt pocket, along with numerous other lotto tickets. Talk about luck.
This lucky gentleman found his jackpot-winning lotto ticket less than 48-hours before it expired. It won him over $24 million.
Winning Lotto Ticket Found Just in Time
While the lucky save happened back in May 2017, the news of this lucky save has only recently surfaced. The lucky winner was a 68-year old man who lives in East Orange, in New Jersey. He says he went to look through old lotto tickets, after seeing the New York Lottery recommending that players do so, as they had a large unclaimed win. With less than 48 hours left before his winning ticket expired, he found it. The New York Lottery revealed the news last week, after taking some time to verify his winning ticket. His ticket had all six numbers, plus the bonus ball, which made him $24 million richer. The winner is a father of two and has 12 grandchildren. He hasn’t gone into much detail about what he plans to do with his new-found wealth, but he did say he was going to discuss the matter with his family. Rather than going for a lump-sum payout, he instead decided to have the money paid to him over a 26-year period.
Jackpot Lotto Wins Going Unclaimed
It’s quite surprising that the $24 million win nearly went unclaimed. Players with a winning ticket in the New York Lottery have one year to claim the money before it returns to the prize pool. The lottery had to make numerous pleas to the public to check their tickets. Local news eventually picked up on the story, and this was when our lucky winner decided to check. According to lottery experts, billions of dollars go unclaimed every year. However, most of this is people not claiming smaller wins. Large jackpots are almost always claimed, but there have been some exceptions. In 2007, a $31 million jackpot went unclaimed in Queens, New York. Just four years later, a massive $77 million Powerball win expired. Powerball tickets expire in just 180 days, so there is a lot less time to claim. Just imagine finding out you lost $77 million… At least this story had a happy ending.
