Do you have the $50 Million ticket?

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Somewhere out there, there’s a lottery ticket worth $50 million dollars – and it was purchased in Hamilton. The draw was held on March 20th, but so far, no one has come forward to claim the prize. Officially,lottery winners have up to a year to come forward and claim their prize. But a year’s worth of interest on 50 million dollars, is a lot of money. And so with a win this big, someone usually steps up fairly quickly, to cash their winning ticket. As of today, lottery officials say they have heard nothing from the jackpot winners at all.

Nearly two months after the numbers were drawn, the 50-million dollar lottery jackpot remains unclaimed. “Two months is not unusual, we get people who will validate the day after, will validate a couple of weeks, will check on line, will know that they have the numbers, and then they get their affairs in order” says Tony Bitonti from the OLG.

The OLG hands out roughly two billion dollars a year, in prize money. Mr. Bitonti says about two percent of that goes unclaimed. That’s 40-million dollars a year. Much of it in smaller prizes, but some of it in tickets that go unsold. “For example, cash for life may have three or four million dollars allocated to it. If those tickets remain unsold, that money, that’s been allocated, remains unclaimed as well too”

Still, having a single-ticket prize of this magnitude unclaimed, is somewhat surprising. The OLG has some information about the winner – like where the ticket was purchased, and at what time – but they hold back that information to help identify and confirm, legitimate winners. But since most tickets are purchased on an anonymous cash basis, if a winner doesn’t come forward, it’s not that easy to track them down:

“People do put it in their pockets, in a junk drawer, in their car glove box, and then forget about it.” Should you, however, find your ticket has taken a tumble through the laundry cycle, don’t despair- there may still be hope. “We have had people come to us with a handful of scraps of paper, and there are times when we have been able to reconstruct that ticket.”

So, it’s time to check your pockets, purses and winter coats once more … they may be hiding a gold mine, made of paper.

The OLG did manage to track down a 50-million dollar winner a couple of years ago, but only because the ticket had been purchased with a credit card. And store security video confirmed the legitimate winner. That doesn’t appear to be case in this missing ticket mystery.