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Ontario $1 million lottery winner has only four days left to claim his winnings

Ontario $1 million lottery winner has only four days left to claim his winnings

A would-be Canadian millionaire is running out of time to change his or her life. A deadline is fast approaching for someone who purchased a winning Lotto Max Maxmillions ticket in Milton, Ont., last year.

The $1 million prize has never been claimed and, unlike a high profile case in which the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. tracked down a $50 million winner last year, they won’t run a similar search this time around.

Nor should they. Those seeking their fortune through randomly generated number pairings should at least accept the responsibility of maintaining their own records.

OLG announced earlier this week that the ticket, purchased on Dec. 20, 2013, was about to reach its one-year expiration date.

"Anyone possessing this ticket should fill in the back portion, sign it and contact the OLG Prize Centre at 20 Dundas Street West in Toronto before 6 p.m. on Monday, December 22, 2014," the lotto agency stated.

For the record, the winning numbers were 2,3,9,10,17,32 and 34.

The OLG knows where and when the ticket was purchased. But they lack the ability to confirm the “who.”

“The one thing we don’t know about the tickets are the actual customers,” OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti told the Toronto Star.

In the past, the agency has managed to sleuth out a resolution.

In 2013, OLG faced the impending expiration of a $50 million jackpot lottery ticket.

A months-long investigation managed to use the date and location of when and where the winning ticket had been purchased to pinpoint the transaction to a Shoppers Drug Mart in Cambridge, Ont. From there, they used security footage to confirm the identity of the buyer – Kathryn Jones, who says she had lost the ticket and forgot about it.

It was an unprecedented moment for OLG, and one they say they can’t be responsible to replicate every time a ticket goes unclaimed.

Check out the OLG’s official website. There are more than a few alerts of unclaimed winnings.

A $10,000 winner is going unclaimed in Kitchener; another $1 million bonanza is sitting idle in Stratford.

Unclaimed tickets are more common than you’d think. There are 25 prizes currently sitting unclaimed across Ontario alone, and that doesn’t include any purchased after Sept. 22, 2014.

The OLG uses Data Analysis and Retrieval Technology (DART) to provide as much information about unclaimed tickets as possible to the public.

They can use that information to investigate when someone claims to have lost a winning ticket, even employing the program to analyze playing patterns in the hopes of identifying a winner.

It is an extensive process with a lot of safety nets. Still, if you want that money, the onus is on you to come forward. They can’t be responsible for hunting down everyone who forgets they bought a lottery ticket.

If you’re wondering, any prizes that are left unclaimed through the expiration date are turned over to the province and go to funding social programs.

Which is great news for everyone but the negligent winner.