mike honcho
Knuckleheads
$7 million Lotto Texas prize goes unclaimed 2:41 PM CT
03:13 PM CST on Tuesday, November 3, 2009
By MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News
Was it lost in the laundry, shredded in the spin cycle or simply tossed out with the trash?
Whatever happened, it amounted to a very big loss.
This particular Lotto Texas ticket, purchased at the Big Country Mart in Burleson in early May, would have won its buyer a cash payout of $7,131,735.60.
Trouble is, the buyer never claimed the prize.
So when the Texas Lottery Commission closed for the day Monday afternoon, time ran out for this ticket. And all of Texas was a little richer for it.
“The ticket expired 180 days from the day of the drawing — May 6 — and when a prize goes unclaimed, the money goes back to the state,” said Bobby Heath, a spokesman for the lottery commission.
Now, failing to cash a Lotto ticket worth millions doesn’t happen often, Heath said — maybe five times since 1994. But it’s amazing how often winners of smaller prizes fail to collect.
“In fiscal year 2009 [which ended on Aug. 31], we gave approximately $43 million back to the state in unclaimed prizes,” Heath said. And that was the lowest amount in five years.
“It has been as high as $61 million in 2005, with $54 million in 2006, $59 million in 2007 and $54 in 2008,” he said.
The first $10 million returned each year is allocated to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Heath said, and the rest is placed in the state’s general fund
03:13 PM CST on Tuesday, November 3, 2009
By MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News
Was it lost in the laundry, shredded in the spin cycle or simply tossed out with the trash?
Whatever happened, it amounted to a very big loss.
This particular Lotto Texas ticket, purchased at the Big Country Mart in Burleson in early May, would have won its buyer a cash payout of $7,131,735.60.
Trouble is, the buyer never claimed the prize.
So when the Texas Lottery Commission closed for the day Monday afternoon, time ran out for this ticket. And all of Texas was a little richer for it.
“The ticket expired 180 days from the day of the drawing — May 6 — and when a prize goes unclaimed, the money goes back to the state,” said Bobby Heath, a spokesman for the lottery commission.
Now, failing to cash a Lotto ticket worth millions doesn’t happen often, Heath said — maybe five times since 1994. But it’s amazing how often winners of smaller prizes fail to collect.
“In fiscal year 2009 [which ended on Aug. 31], we gave approximately $43 million back to the state in unclaimed prizes,” Heath said. And that was the lowest amount in five years.
“It has been as high as $61 million in 2005, with $54 million in 2006, $59 million in 2007 and $54 in 2008,” he said.
The first $10 million returned each year is allocated to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Heath said, and the rest is placed in the state’s general fund
Who knows. Here's a quick story from someone that I know who did win a cool mil in the Illinois lottery. Tom was just like so many other people, giving a weekly stipend of $10 to the state, buying lottery tickets. He would check out the numbers each week and would then toss the losing tickets in the trash. That is how he handled the tickets one Monday morning, but later in the day heard that the lottery was having a "Second Chance" prize drawing for a million bucks. Tom quickly called his wife and told her to get the tickets out of the trash and check them out. Well, you guessed it, one of his tickets was a winner. They couldn't take the cash out at that time and had to settle for yearly payouts for twenty years. As it turned out, Tom got a check from the state yearly for about $38,000 AFTER taxes, and its getting close to the end of his time. Tom is a wise man and didn't quite his job as a mailman and used the money to secure his future for himself and his family. Tom is still fairly young, mid fifties, and is set for life and still carrying mail in Davenport, Iowa. 