I call BS on FL Lotto's explanations.
There's a simple way to end this...
60 days after a game has ended and outstanding tickets are no longer allowed to be claimed, Scientific Games should hand over to the FL Lottery a "Master Key" for the game that reveals the following:
Book Number:
Book Winnings / Book Cost (i.e. $245/$600 - which lets us know this is a "Minimum Payback" or "Hot Roll" We don't need to necessarily see each ticket's specific win/loss value because we can do the math and determine if a jackpot was in the particular roll or if it was your typical minimum payout roll.
The FL Lottery should then use this "Master Key" from Sci Games and release the following:
Activation Status: Whether the book was activated at any time during the life of the game
Lottery Retailer: The Numeric ID of the Lottery Retailer that Activated the Game
Activation Date: The Date the Book was Activated
A * next to the roll number would indicate a roll that was never activated.
As a cover to this report (and because most interest would be in the Jackpot or 2nd tier million dollar prize), the lottery should produce this info with emphasis on all of the advertised jackpot winners for the game so that any unclaimed or unactivated jackpots can be accounted for.
Is this too much to ask?
I don't think any of this would be rocket science for either SciGames or FL Lottery to produce and I don't think this would compromise any algorithms used by SciGames to produce the jackpot winners. We could then see if tickets were ever activated and based on the date, discern if/when the lottery removed them from the retailer or if it's possible someone trashed a life-changing experience away.