World’s biggest unclaimed lottery jackpots – from Brit who missed £64million prize to doctor who ‘lost winning ticket’ | The Sun
WHILE most of eagerly check our lottery numbers, there are some winners who have never come forward to claim their prizes.
From those who missed the deadline to those who lost their lottery ticket, here are some of world’s biggest unclaimed lottery prizes.
There are several reasons why players fail to claim their lottery prizes.
They may have lost their ticket, they don't check their numbers on time, are unaware that there are prizes other than the Jackpot, or don't know when the claim deadline is.
The largest unclaimed EuroMillions lottery prize – £64 million – is from the UK, after a lucky person bought the ticket in the Stevenage and Hitchin area of Hertfordshire.
As the days went by, billboards were erected and appeals were made to locate the winner, but the £64 million jackpot expired on December 5, 2012, after the six months limit.
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The prize was actually won by not one but two players. While the winning ticket was left unclaimed in the UK, a Belgian player claimed their half of the prize.
The largest ever unclaimed ticket was in Georgia, US, when an unlucky player missed out on a $77 million Powerball Jackpot prize.
The person had bought the ticket at a truck stop in Tallapoosa, for the June 29, 2011 draw, but failed to claim the ticket before the 180 day deadline. The ticked expired in December that year.
A winning Mega Millions ticket worth $68 million purchased n Queens, New York for the December 24, 2002 draw was left unclaimed, and then expired.
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A year later, however, a man called Fritzner Bechette claimed he had been the lucky winner of the Mega Millions draw.
He filed a lawsuit against the New York State Lottery at the Queens Supreme Court, claiming that he had been trying to claim his ticket since the day the results were announced.
Bechette sued the entity for the jackpot lost, plus interest. Officials were told the reason he had failed to claim his win was because his lottery ticket had gone missing in a "non-retrievable" situation.
After investigations, the officials announced they did not find a lottery ticket matching the player's description, neither in New York State lottery’s archive, nor in Queens.
More recently, a February 2016 $63 million SuperLotto Plus ticket was left unclaimed in California after the customary deadline.
One day, a Los Angeles resident called Brandy Milliner came forward to claim the prize, telling officials he had purchased the winning ticket on August 8, 2015.
Initially, officials sent Milliner a letter, in which they congratulated him for his win.
But soon enough, they contacted him to say he would not receive the $63 million prize because of the condition of the ticket.
Despite a complaint, officials who investigated his claim found that Milliner's ticket didn’t match the winning ticket, and that his ticket had been brought at a different date and location to the winning ticket.
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The findings don't seem to have settle Milliner, who continued to claim he was the rightful winner of the prize.
In an interview in 2017, he confirmed he would continue to take legal action to reclaim his alleged millions.
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