Are you sure you checked your ticket? Clock ticking on unclaimed $1M lottery prize
It's a million dollar mystery
The winning lottery ticket for the Dec. 15, 2017, Lotto Max Maxmillions draw was purchased in Edmonton but is still unclaimed.
Just to make the mystery a little richer, a $250,000 Extra prize from the same day — and also won by a ticket purchased in Edmonton — is still waiting for the lucky winner to step forward.
"It's rare that there's a large prize that goes unclaimed," Andrea Marantz, a Western Canada Lottery Corporation spokesperson, told CBC.
$15 million left on the table
Rare. But not unprecedented.
A Lotto 6/49 draw in Alberta from 2006 has gone down in history as the largest unclaimed lottery prize in Canada.
Marantz said the year-long claiming window for the $14.9 million prize came and went. To this day, she's never heard from the winner.
"It's heartbreaking. I hope whoever had that ticket never finds out," she said.
Currently, there is almost $2.9 million in unclaimed lottery money related to tickets purchased in Alberta within the last year.
All unclaimed lottery winnings go back into the prize pool for bonus draws.
Marantz said that this summer, additional prizes were added to the Wednesday Lotto 6/49 draws with all of the money drawing from unclaimed prizes.
All winners on WCLC tickets have one year from the day of the draw to claim their prize. Scratch tickets have prize claim expiration dates printed on them.
After three months of sitting unclaimed, the prize amount and winning numbers are listed on the WCLC unclaimed prizes page online. The site also lists unclaimed prizes from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Territories.
"Whenever there's a draw, we publish immediately through our website and lots of newspapers also publish where the prizes have been won," said Marantz.
For people holding a winning ticket, the process for claiming the prize depends on the amount won.
Claiming your prize
Retailers are required to validate and pay out all prizes up to $100.
Prizes between $100.01 and $1,000 can be claimed at a lottery retailer, but if the location doesn't have enough cash for the payout, the winner may be asked to go to another retailer or to the lottery office for payment.
Winners with prizes over $1,000.01 have to call the lottery office for instructions.
To check tickets, the WCLC has approved apps that people can download to smartphones or tablets.
"The app is connected right to the game systems," said Marantz. "The information that comes from the app is coming from the same source as if you took your ticket into the corner store."
