It was only this past week, almost five months later, that Smith again appeared at the office to finally collect his prize, the representative said. Smith completed some paperwork, then left again.
“It was a bit of an unusual situation where we couldn’t track” the winner, said the representative.
Smith chose to receive his $24 million in installments over 26 years, according to the commission. He could not be immediately reached for comment.
“I just hope they didn’t lose the ticket. I think it is probably lost,” Bobby Patel, the owner of the grocery store, told the New York Post in May, a week before the ticket’s expiry date. “It could even be a tourist. Sometimes tourists come in and buy lottery tickets. They go home. They forget.”
Patel added that he had been telling all his regular customers to check their tickets. “It would be a shame for all of that money to go to waste. Please,” he said. “There is only a week left.”
Massive jackpots have gone unclaimed in New York before. One ticket bought in 2002 was for $63 million and another, the following year, was for $46 million, according to the gaming commission. Both were sold in Brooklyn, according to the New York Post.
In 2015, the New York Lottery put out “Wanted” posters around Brooklyn in its search for the winner of a $7 million Cash4Life lottery ticket, which was about to expire. The search was unsuccessful, but it did nab the New York Lottery an industry award for its creative marketing campaign.
At least nine winning New York Lottery tickets went unclaimed between 2002 and 2014, totaling $191 million in lapsed prizes, according to the gaming commission.
And in the fiscal year 2016-2017, a total of $74 million in New York Lottery prizes went unclaimed, according to the New York Post.
Article Appeared @https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/10/13/this-grandfather-found-his-24-million-lottery-ticket-just-before-it-expired/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-national%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.5b989a6ce4fd