Ticket worth millions potentially lost
By Kate Northrop
A winner of a $38 million SuperLotto Plus prize has just one more day to step forward to claim the money before the winning ticket expires.
Someone in San Diego won a massive prize worth $38 million in the California Lottery's SuperLotto Plus game, but judging by what little time remains for the mystery winner to come forward with the winning ticket, the money might go by the wayside.
The ticket in question will expire on Thurs., Oct. 27 if it is not claimed.
A California lottery player bought a ticket for the SuperLotto Plus draw on Sat., April 30, 2022 at the 7-Eleven on Spruce Street in San Diego and matched all six numbers — 3, 15, 21, 35, 46, and Mega Number 18 — to win the game's $38 million jackpot.
The ticketholder had 180 days from the draw date to claim the prize, and now just one day remains.
Even if the ticket expires, however, someone will inevitably come out on top as a winner. The $22.9 million cash value of the prize will go to California public schools if no one files a claim for the winnings.
The California Lottery has raised more than $1 billion in unclaimed prizes since tickets first went on sale in 1985, according to the Lottery.
Players are encouraged to double-check any SuperLotto Plus tickets they might be hanging onto as soon as possible. Anyone who believes they have the winning ticket will need to complete a claim form, which is available on the Lottery's website, at all nine Lottery District Offices, and at any of the Lottery's retailers across the state.
The winner must bring a signed claim form along with the winning ticket to any Lottery District Office or mail the documents to Lottery headquarters. The ticket must be postmarked or claimed in person by Thurs., Oct. 27, 2022, the Lottery stated in a press release.
I really hope the winner comes forward to claim it today or tomorrow. It would massively suck if the ticket is forever lost in a pile of McD's wrappers on the floor of a car or lord knows where.
Although it's nice the money goes to public education, $22 million is a drop in the bucket. To give you an idea of scale, LAUSD (the 2nd largest public school district in the country) has an annual operating budget between $10 and $20 billion. A typical medium-sized school district like Elk Grove (a suburb of the capital) has a budget between $800 and $900 million. Now imagine that $22 million spread out over all 1,021 public school districts in CA.
American Indian....is this you?
Why even bother buying a lottery ticket, if you are not going to bother checking it right after the draw. This is no chump change folks. Keep your tickets in a safe place.
It's amazing the number of jackpots go unclaimed due to the carelessness of lottery players. Maybe we responsible players should adopt that cavelier behaviour and "misplace" those million dollar ducats, and change our luck!
Lottery money doesn't go to education, it goes through education. An equal or greater amount is taken out somewhere else in the education system.
One of the problems is there is such an influx of tourist into California during the spring and summer that the person who bought the ticket probably was not a regular player, they probably did it for fun with their friends and then went back to Iowa or some other state and forgot they ever bought a ticket. That has happened before.........when you are having a good time and you are out of your element you tend to overlook a lot of things. That ticket was probably left in the back of an Uber, and thrown away with a bunch of little red party cups and Taco Bell bags. I think I'm going to be sick.
Too true.
I bet it was was destroyed in the washing machine again.
It's morons like this who don't deserve to win!
Here's an update on this story in case anyone cares
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-news/lottery-player-makes-last-minute-claim-to-38m-san-diego-superlotto-plus-ticket
Somebody dashed into the claims office just before closing. But the lottery won't say more than that because the ticket has to go through a lengthy verification process. If it really was the real winner, that's a he11uva claim story. Or could it just be some attention-seeking crank who altered the numbers on his losing ticket?
I knew a teacher who told me the same thing, she sarcastically laughed about Lottery money going towards education.
"But the lottery won't say more than that "
I hope they say more after the ticket is validated (or not). I'd take awhile to get things squared away, and in some circumstances I might wait until after January 1st even if it's 6 months away, but there's absolutely zero chance I'd wait until there's less than a week left.
Currently the CA Lottery says it's processing claims in 7 to 9 weeks, longest wait time of any state. For a jackpot though, might be 3 months till we know if it was the real winner