Two winners of $1 million raffle prizes missing in action

By Kate Northrop

Two $1 million winning raffle tickets, one each from the Virginia Lottery and Idaho Lottery's annual raffles, will expire on the same day if their respective winners don't lay claim to them.

Two Virginia and Idaho lottery players were fortunate enough to win the $1 million top prize in their respective state raffle, but they'll go by the wayside in less than a week if they don't come forward to claim them.

In last winter's Idaho $1,000,000 Raffle held on Dec. 30, 2024, lucky ticket number 063647 was one of two fortunate tickets to win the $1 million top prize. The annual draw gave Idaho players the "best odds ever of winning a million" at $10 per ticket.

The unclaimed ticket, which was purchased in Star, had beaten out nearly 450,000 other raffle tickets to win the guaranteed million-dollar prize, and if the ticketholder does not present it at the Lottery's Boise office by 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time on Mon., June 30, 2025, the Lottery will not be able to pay out the prize.

There are also three unclaimed $1,000 winning tickets from this year's raffle, which were purchased in Rathdrum, Nampa, and Middleton.

If no one comes forward to claim the $1 million prize, this will become the third $1 million winning draw ticket in Idaho history to go unclaimed and the first in more than a decade, according to Lottery officials.

On the very same day, another $1 million raffle ticket is set to expire, this one from the Virginia Lottery's New Year's Millionaire Raffle held on Jan. 1, 2025. Five lucky Virginia players had beaten the odds of 1 in 125,000 to win $1 million top prize, all of which have been claimed except for one.

The last remaining unclaimed raffle ticket, which was ticket number 229618 purchased at Food Lion on Windward Drive in Fishersville, is also due to expire on June 30, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

The Virginia Lottery advises the ticketholder to contact them immediately and arrange for a claim at any of their eight customer service centers across the state.

Unclaimed Virginia Lottery prizes are transferred to Virginia's Literary Fund, which provides low-interest loans to localities for public school construction, renovations and technology upgrades, the Virginia Lottery said in a press release.

Meanwhile, unclaimed Idaho Lottery prizes are funneled to Idaho public schools and the Department of Administration's Permanent Building Fund for places like Idaho's college and university campuses, a statement from the Idaho Lottery reads. According to the Idaho Lottery, about $5 million in winning Idaho lottery tickets go unclaimed each year.

By law, players in both Idaho and Virginia have 180 days from the draw date to collect lottery prizes. After the deadline, those winning tickets turn into worthless slips of paper.