The ticket is probably crumpled up in an American pickup truck, between empty cigarette packets and energy drinks. Or some hungry couch crack ate it. In any case, the loss is a shame. The lottery ticket would have brought its winner a total of $36 million if they had been found in time. But the collection period of 180 days applicable in Florida has now passed. The jackpot: finally gone.
The unlucky man probably lives in Jacksonville, an industrial city on the Florida coast. As several US media reports, the $36 million grand prize was won there in mid-August 2023 in a Publix supermarket. The missing ticket from the “Mega Millions” series had the numbers 8, 39, 42, 57, 63 and the super number 7. The chance of such a win is Florida lottery company according to more than one in 320 million.
The young people benefit
In order to determine the winner, the company launched a public appeal: Anyone who played the lottery in Publix supermarkets should check their tickets carefully again. But now hiking according to TV channels Fox Business 20 percent of the winnings go back into the jackpot, and 80 percent go to education, i.e. public schools, scholarships and universities. Anyone who doesn’t collect their winnings in the USA is at least supporting the next generation.
All over the world, thousands upon thousands of people leave their small and large winnings behind every year: In most cases, they don’t know about their luck, haven’t checked the numbers or lost the ticket. Smaller and medium-sized winnings are sometimes simply overlooked due to the disappointment that they did not win the jackpot. Especially when it comes to small winnings, some people don’t even bother to collect them. There are also said to have been lottery players who didn’t claim their jackpots because they were afraid that their lives could suddenly change. There are stories like this all the time: first someone hits the jackpot, then they squander it all in a short space of time, and finally the total crash follows.
It is estimated that billions of dollars in lottery winnings are lost worldwide every year. A CNN report According to this, in 2017, $167 million was said to have gone unclaimed in the USA alone. In the UK, between 2018 and 2019, winnings of more than 125 million pounds, at the time more than 140 million euros, went unclaimed, reported The Sun. In 2011, a British islander missed out on a whopping £63.8 million in winnings.
In Germany, too, the sum is likely to be in the millions, but there are no nationwide statistics for the state lottery companies. In April 2017, a winner in Baden-Württemberg in the Lotto 6 out of 49 failed to collect a total of 11.3 million euros. It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve that a million-dollar prize from the “Bayern Millions” lottery expired in the Memmingen area. In order to find the lucky person, the lottery center even hung posters in the acceptance points. The money will now flow into the state budget for charitable purposes.
Compared to other countries, Germany has some of the longest collection times. While in the USA it is between 180 days and a year, lottery winners in Germany have a full three years before the ticket expires. If the sum is not collected on time, in most federal states it goes into the state treasury and into a pot for special draws.
The State lottery company in Lower Saxony recommends using a customer card at the acceptance points. The lottery player gets his winnings automatically transferred to the account on file. If you win a certain amount – in Lower Saxony 7,500 euros – a written message is sent to the lucky ones. However, the safest way is to play the lottery online via the provider’s apps and websites. Here too, the winnings are transferred to the respective account – without any paper slip. It doesn’t matter if the couch eats the lottery ticket again.