Lotto winner could forfeit jackpot
Like a magical horsedrawn carriage that transforms into a pumpkin at midnight, someone’s winning $63-million lottery ticket is about to turn into a worthless scrap of paper, according to California Lottery officials.
A winning SuperLotto Plus ticket — purchased at a Chatsworth convenience store in August — has yet to be redeemed at a California Lottery office, even though the deadline is fast approaching.
If the lucky winner fails to show up by 5 p.m. Thursday, he or she will forfeit the jackpot, officials say.
“At this point, the odds are slim of anybody coming forward,” lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said.
On Wednesday morning, however, a man filed papers in Los Angeles County Superior Court, saying that he had submitted the winning ticket to lottery officials but that they were improperly withholding payment.
In court papers, Brandy Milliner said that lottery officials may have “destroyed” the ticket after he gave it to them. He now wants a judge to declare him the winner of the jackpot.
Lottery officials have insisted that nobody has claimed the jackpot, not even someone with a fake ticket.
“The excitement is building,” Traverso said Wednesday.
The California Lottery put out a public call in November, warning the ticket holder that he or she had 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim the $63million jackpot. Now, the clock is really winding down. Lottery officials hoped to jog someone’s memory, prompting the winner to look inside couch cushions or a car glove box for the ticket, Traverso said.
Officials say the ticket was sold Aug. 8 at a 7-Eleven store at 20871 Lassen St. The winning numbers were 1, 16, 30, 33 and 46, with a Mega number of 24.
If a winner does not come forward, the multimilliondollar cash prize would be the largest unclaimed SuperLotto Plus ticket in California.
The current largest unclaimed prize is $28.5 million for a ticket sold in San Lorenzo in 2003.
If the winner should somehow realize after 5 p.m. Thursday that he or she had the winning ticket, Traverso said, it would be too late.
“My hope will be for them ... that they never find it,” Traverso said.
But not all is lost. The unclaimed winnings would go toward funding schools in the next quarter, he said.
And if the winner is someone who just likes to cut things a little close and walks into a lottery office by the close of business Thursday, that person will have the option of receiving a lump-sum, one-time payment of $39.9 million, or $63 million in payments over 30 years.
The store owner who sold the ticket will still receive $315,000, even if no one shows up to claim the $63 million.
Lottery officials say they also have yet to hear from the person who walked into a Chino Hills 7-Eleven last month and purchased a winning ticket in a massive $1.6billion Powerball drawing.
In that case, however, the winner has a year from the date of the drawing to claim a $528-million share of the jackpot before the ticket turns to trash.