B.C. lottery winners left $20 million in prizes unclaimed
Be they lost in the recesses of purses, wadded up in the lint bins of dryers, or trapped between the cushions of couches, winning lottery tickets don’t always find their way to prize money and glory.
If you’re someone who tends to lose things, and lottery tickets in particular, you may want to brace yourself before reading any further. That’s because more than $20 million in lottery winnings went unclaimed and expired in B.C. over the last 10 fiscal years, according to BCLC.
Looking at national games Lotto Max, Lotto 6/49 and Daily Grand alone, $19.7 million in prizes has gone unclaimed since April 1, 2010. That small fortune isn’t comprised of a stack of $5 or $10 winnings, either. It includes unclaimed tickets to two $1-million Lotto Max Maxmillions prizes and a pair of $1-million Lotto 6/49 wins, according to the lottery corporation.
Peter Graf, a professor of psychology and cognitive scientist at the University of B.C., took a shot at answering the big question as to why so many people seem to lose or forget to check their tickets. Part of the answer comes down to understanding two primary types of buyers, he said.
“If you compare the people who are regular buyers, the frequent flyers, I would assume they have a nice little system where they buy them and stick them in a fixed place so they know where they are,” Graf said.
“And then I assume the people who lose or forget about their lottery tickets are more impulse buyers (who) walk by a store, see $65 million available, and then buy a ticket. Those people probably don’t have a place to store their tickets.”
Buyers in the latter camp might be using lottery tickets as bookmarks, only to rediscover them well past their stale date, Graf said.
Systems can help people avoid losing or forgetting things, Graf said. But it’s not enough to simply tuck a ticket that’s bought on a whim into a random, top secret hiding place. That doesn’t tend to work well with Christmas or birthday presents hidden away from prying eyes, and it certainly doesn’t work with little pieces of paper.
More than $2 million in national prizes from tickets bought in B.C. have expired in this fiscal year, according to BCLC. And since April 1, 2018, almost $1.2 million in winnings from regional lotteries Extra, BC/49 and BC 50/50 have expired.
As of Oct. 16, there was an unclaimed 6/49 winning ticket from the Oct. 2 draw that was bought in Richmond and is worth about $252,000. There is also one unclaimed Lotto Max winning ticket from July 26 worth more than $105,000, also bought in Richmond.
Lottery winners have up to a year from the draw to claim their prizes. Unclaimed cash goes back into the pot.
Last year, Darcy Hickey of Kamloops bought a ticket for the July 6, 2018 Lotto Max draw and tucked it in his wallet. When he finally checked his numbers three months later, he learned he’d been packing a $1-million winner.