Winning Powerball ticket sold; buyer misses deadline to collect prize
A little more than six months ago, somebody bought a Powerball ticket at the Quick Mart at the corner of Cherry Road and Heckle Boulevard.
Somebody, somewhere, in the lint trap of a clothes dryer, or maybe on the floorboards of a pickup truck, has a scrap of paper that was worth $800,000.
That scrap is now worthless.
The window for claiming prizes in South Carolina is 180 days.
The unclaimed prize is the largest in the five-plus years of the S.C. Education Lottery, said Holli Armstrong, a lottery spokeswoman.
Somebody who didn't know he had a fortune cost Jimmy Mulltani eight grand. The lottery gives retailers who sell winning tickets a bonus of 1 percent of the winning ticket.
Mulltani owns and runs the Rock Hill store where the ticket was sold. He came from India, to make a better life for himself and his family. He works countless hours.
"Bad," Mulltani said last week about the uncashed ticket, in the ultimate understatement.
A 57-year-old machinist from tiny Woodruff, S.C., south of Spartanburg, picked the same winning numbers on that same day the Rock Hill ticket was sold. He cashed his ticket. He told the lottery his occupation was going to be "retired machinist."
The Li'l Cricket store where he bought the ticket got the $8,000 bonus.
"And we all got an $800 bonus," said Diane Wray, a clerk at that store. "I used it for Christmas."
That man from Woodruff, single with seven kids, did not want his name released by the lottery.
A man from Chester socked away enough of the $1 million he won a couple years ago to pay for his grandchildren to go to college, and more.
A guy named Wendell Hughes from Fort Mill won $1 million in lottery money last fall. His two sons' college is paid for, and more.
The $800,000 from the unclaimed ticket will go to the state treasurer's office lottery account.
"I hope whoever bought that ticket never finds out it was him," said Hughes, the Fort Mill winner, "because it will break his heart."
Quote: Originally posted by DoubleDown on Apr 25, 2007
If they do find out..............
I doubt if they will ever find out. Maybe they're not even alive. I'm guessing that one of the reasons we read about these unclaimed tickets is purely statistics. I don't know exactly how many people bought tickets for that draw, but take any heavily populated city like Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, etc. Get the paper and read how many people die every week.
There are a lot of threads about anonymity and not telling a soul you won. I've already told my sister, in case of emergency or death, to look on my desk for a possible winning lottery ticket. You could buy a ticket and then get into an accident the next day.
But on a lighter note, chances are many people who buy tickets just look at the numbers on TV or read the news and figure "I didn't win" because they don't understand there are lower tier prizes in addition to the jackpot, the same way people throw winning scratchers away. They really don't understand the game.
Another thingis it could have been a QP and the person just lost the ticket. I played 999 midday for this whole week in Ky but somehow I got the ticket mixed in with some other tickets which were for only 1 draw and threw it out. I now hope 999 doesn't fall this week because the Garbage truck has come and gone and I am not going out to play it again until next week. So far so good, 3 draws down and 3 left to go. This is the 1st time I did this. Once before my wife didn't check my pants and washed some lottery tickets, but of course they weren't winners. I was begging and pleading before the draw they wouldn't draw my numbers, lol.
justxploring's idea may not explain this particular incident, but death has to account for some of the unclaimed tickets. Figuring that anyone who buys a ticket is at least 18 and has a life expectancy of 78, 1 of every 60 players will die this year. If the typical winner waits 2 weeks between finding out they've won and filing their claim about 1 out of every 1500 winners will die before cashing in the ticket. For the ones who don't tell anybody about their win, there's a fair chance that the ticket wil die with them. As often as we hear about unclaimed prizes I expect that far more tickets are lost , misplaced or never checked, but a few have to be because the winner died and nobody else knew to check the ticket. FWIW, that could be one reason to not sign your ticket, depending on who might cash it in. If you sign it and then die it becomes part of your estate, so after losing the income tax somebody could also lose the estate tax on it.
As far as winners who simply forget to check their tickets, I can (almost) understand it for people who buy a ticket on awhim, but I suspect that most of those people don't take the powerplay option, as was the case for this ticket.
KY Floyd writes: FWIW, that could be one reason to not sign your ticket, depending on who might cash it in. If you sign it and then die it becomes part of your estate, so after losing the income tax somebody could also lose the estate tax on it.
That's a good point. I thought of that too when I was posting earlier. So this is another reason to call an attorney as soon as possible. I always check my tickets right away, but anything can happen, not just between the time you purchase a ticket and look up the numbers, but also after you win. When people have a lot of things on their minds is when they often become forgetful or careless.
Now, would be the time for this particular person to find his/her ticket and.....................after realizing they were the ones holding the winning ticket!!
I don't agree with the "1 in 60" thing. Young players certainly don't have 1 in 60. Even considering death probability, this is assuming that all of them are holding many unchecked jackpot tickets, and also assuming that when they kick the bucket their heirs are in such grief that they never recover enough to check whether Uncle Warbux's Pick-6 won anything. Far more likely the ticket was dropped while the person was shuffling their change or lost in a clutter of desk papers and as I say not everyone is aware of missing tickets until right before the deadline. One time recently there was a dropped ticket at the Lottery counter, face-down, and I picked it up out of curiosity because it looked new and sure enough it was for the upcoming Mega Millions drawing and a QP. Had it won and had I not picked it up and turned it over to the clerk, the player would not have recognized the numbers and it would have gotten swept away and a year from now you'd be reading about an unclaimed Mega ticket. (It didn't end up winning, though.) And often I do find discarded winning scratch-offs for small amounts.
What would really suck(and at the same time be funny) is if this person ends up finding it and then checks the numbers, and ends up trying to claim it not knowing he/she had 180 days to claim it and it's now expired.
Quote: Originally posted by hsvscubaski on Apr 25, 2007
The State gets to keep the money and doesn't pay the retailer!!!!!!!!!! That is bad
This is really upsetting!..The store owner should sue the lottery commission for his 1%.
Or 8,000 dollars for selling that ticket. Or better yet...the remaining money should be forfeited to "the other winner" who also picked the same numbers that night. As he was the only one to come forward. So, after the 180 days expired...it seems logical that the other guy should have gotten the whole kaboodle!
Amen to the last comment. I'd beat myself for the rest of my life if I found out I missed large jackpot like that.
I'm sure they had a very good reason for not cashing it in.
I would be pretty upset or disappointed if I lost or had a winning lottery ticket and waited too long to cash it in.
I want to do things with my life, that you need money in order to accomplish it!
I doubt if they will ever find out. Maybe they're not even alive. I'm guessing that one of the reasons we read about these unclaimed tickets is purely statistics. I don't know exactly how many people bought tickets for that draw, but take any heavily populated city like Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, etc. Get the paper and read how many people die every week.
There are a lot of threads about anonymity and not telling a soul you won. I've already told my sister, in case of emergency or death, to look on my desk for a possible winning lottery ticket. You could buy a ticket and then get into an accident the next day.
But on a lighter note, chances are many people who buy tickets just look at the numbers on TV or read the news and figure "I didn't win" because they don't understand there are lower tier prizes in addition to the jackpot, the same way people throw winning scratchers away. They really don't understand the game.
Another thingis it could have been a QP and the person just lost the ticket. I played 999 midday for this whole week in Ky but somehow I got the ticket mixed in with some other tickets which were for only 1 draw and threw it out. I now hope 999 doesn't fall this week because the Garbage truck has come and gone and I am not going out to play it again until next week. So far so good, 3 draws down and 3 left to go. This is the 1st time I did this. Once before my wife didn't check my pants and washed some lottery tickets, but of course they weren't winners. I was begging and pleading before the draw they wouldn't draw my numbers, lol.
justxploring's idea may not explain this particular incident, but death has to account for some of the unclaimed tickets. Figuring that anyone who buys a ticket is at least 18 and has a life expectancy of 78, 1 of every 60 players will die this year. If the typical winner waits 2 weeks between finding out they've won and filing their claim about 1 out of every 1500 winners will die before cashing in the ticket. For the ones who don't tell anybody about their win, there's a fair chance that the ticket wil die with them. As often as we hear about unclaimed prizes I expect that far more tickets are lost , misplaced or never checked, but a few have to be because the winner died and nobody else knew to check the ticket. FWIW, that could be one reason to not sign your ticket, depending on who might cash it in. If you sign it and then die it becomes part of your estate, so after losing the income tax somebody could also lose the estate tax on it.
As far as winners who simply forget to check their tickets, I can (almost) understand it for people who buy a ticket on awhim, but I suspect that most of those people don't take the powerplay option, as was the case for this ticket.
I would have
KY Floyd writes: FWIW, that could be one reason to not sign your ticket, depending on who might cash it in. If you sign it and then die it becomes part of your estate, so after losing the income tax somebody could also lose the estate tax on it.
That's a good point. I thought of that too when I was posting earlier. So this is another reason to call an attorney as soon as possible. I always check my tickets right away, but anything can happen, not just between the time you purchase a ticket and look up the numbers, but also after you win. When people have a lot of things on their minds is when they often become forgetful or careless.
The State gets to keep the money and doesn't pay the retailer!!!!!!!!!! That is bad
Now, would be the time for this particular person to find his/her ticket and.....................
after realizing they were the ones holding the winning ticket!!
Shiny Disco Balls...Shiny Disco Balls...
I don't agree with the "1 in 60" thing. Young players certainly don't have 1 in 60. Even considering death probability, this is assuming that all of them are holding many unchecked jackpot tickets, and also assuming that when they kick the bucket their heirs are in such grief that they never recover enough to check whether Uncle Warbux's Pick-6 won anything. Far more likely the ticket was dropped while the person was shuffling their change or lost in a clutter of desk papers and as I say not everyone is aware of missing tickets until right before the deadline. One time recently there was a dropped ticket at the Lottery counter, face-down, and I picked it up out of curiosity because it looked new and sure enough it was for the upcoming Mega Millions drawing and a QP. Had it won and had I not picked it up and turned it over to the clerk, the player would not have recognized the numbers and it would have gotten swept away and a year from now you'd be reading about an unclaimed Mega ticket. (It didn't end up winning, though.) And often I do find discarded winning scratch-offs for small amounts.
What would really suck(and at the same time be funny) is if this person ends up finding it and then checks the numbers, and ends up trying to claim it not knowing he/she had 180 days to claim it and it's now expired.
This is really upsetting!..The store owner should sue the lottery commission for his 1%.
Or 8,000 dollars for selling that ticket. Or better yet...the remaining money should be forfeited to "the other winner" who also picked the same numbers that night. As he was the only one to come forward. So, after the 180 days expired...it seems logical that the other guy should have gotten the whole kaboodle!
IS THERE A LAWYER IN THE HOUSE????????? LOL!!