Lottery ticket loses $63 million
A SuperLotto Plus ticket went from a $63-million prize to a worthless scrap of paper late Thursday afternoon after the person who bought it failed to show up by the deadline to turn it in.
The winner had 180 days from the drawing on Aug. 8 to claim the prize. The California Lottery had even put out a public call, warning the winner to claim his or her prize money before 5 p.m. Thursday or lose it.
Despite all the hype, lottery officials said the wouldbe winner never came forward. But the end of someone’s $63-million dream didn’t come without controversy.
Brandy Milliner, a Los Angeles County resident, filed legal documents Wednesday morning, alleging he had turned in the winning ticket to the California Lottery Commission within the claim period.
He said the commission even sent him a letter congratulating him, saying he would receive a check in six to eight weeks.
Milliner said the commission later reneged on his payment. Lottery officials said they routinely send congratulatory letters to people who claim to be winners before the ticket is confirmed.
According to the lawsuit, the commission sent a second notice in January, saying the ticket was “too damaged to be reconstructed” and his claim could not be processed.
Milliner is asking a judge to declare him the winner.
The winning ticket was purchased at a 7-Eleven near 99-cent shops and liquor stores in the San Fernando Valley — the type of place that brings a steady stream of lottery ticket buyers who return in large numbers the day after a drawing to check their tickets.
Gary Garcia, a 55-yearold retired demolition laborer, said Thursday that the store is one of several at which he buys $5 worth of tickets in the morning and $5 in the evening each day.
“To be honest with you, a gambler never gets ahead,” he said. “I just do it to pass the time.”
As time ran out, Ocean Marciano, a 40-year-old music producer from Sherman Oaks, rushed into the store with a stack of unchecked lottery tickets he had stashed away and then forgotten.
“My girl has been yelling at me because I literally have thousands of these at home and I never checked any of them,” Marciano said. “Some of these go back to 2012.”
He said he spent hours searching old suitcases, shoe boxes, wallets, workout bags and fat plastic bags that his mother uses in a failed attempt to organize the tickets he accumulates.
“I’m scrambling here,” said Marciano, who had already thought out his plan on how to invest and spend the jackpot. “I know there are a lot of people out there like me.”
As he scanned the tickets in the stores, he learned he would get $5 for one purchased on Jan. 13. “I won!” he shouted. The multimillion-dollar jackpot is the largest unclaimed SuperLotto Plus prize in the state’s history. The money will go toward funding schools in the next quarter, lottery officials said.