The buyer of a top prize-winning lottery ticket worth $7 million has just two weeks left to claim their windfall — or lose it forever.
A Brooklyn deli sold the $7 million multi-state Cash4Life ticket last July.
The purchase was made at the Milky Way Deli at 1669 Ralph Ave. in Flatlands.
It was for the July 24, 2014 Cash4Life drawing — meaning the owner has until this July 24 to redeem it.
If nobody comes forward, the $7 million goes back in the pot, lottery officials said.
"Time is running out for the winner of this $7,000,000 prize, but we are still hopeful that someone will come forward to claim it before July 24," said New York Lottery Director Gardner Gurney.
"We are urging players to check and double-check their tickets one last time for the chance to claim this $7,000,000 jackpot prize," Gurney said.
The winning ticket matched all six numbers the drawing last July: 5, 20, 35, 43, and 48, with Cash Ball number 3.
Lottery officials recommend that the ticket holder sign the back of the ticket and contact them immediately at 518-388-3370.
The winner may claim the ticket at any one of the Lottery's Customer Service Centers statewide, including the Manhattan office at 15 Beaver St and the Long Island office at 45 South Service Road in Plainview.
"We encourage our players to always check their tickets as we have hundreds of prizes every drawing including $2,500 prizes and $500 prizes," added Gurney.
Hopefully someone comes forward and claims the prize before it expires.
That ticket is history. No one's coming forward to claim it l fear. Hope l am wrong.
At least it goes back in the pot, most states are so greedy they just keep it.
JPs belong to players not states !
Well it's New York, so the winner has probably won many times in the past and will win again in the future, so probably no big loss for them.
That's exactly what I was gonna post. At least it will eventually go to a player instead of into the state coffers to be wasted.
'It was for the July 24, 2014 Cash4Life drawing — meaning the owner has until this July 24 to redeem it.
If nobody comes forward, the $7 million goes back in the pot, lottery officials said.'
I prefer the UK system, where unclaimed prizes are used to fund good causes.
If he/she planed by subscription this would not happen!
You can play Cash4Life by subscription in New York.
NEVER MISS A DRAW!
Subscriptions are available for a few of your favorite New York Lottery games. You can purchase Mega Millions, Lotto and Cash4Life subscriptions from five weeks up to a year’s worth of drawings. Sign up at our subscriptions center by clicking the link below, and you can order, renew, and manage one or multiple accounts online. Your winnings will be automatically sent to your prize account or paid to you by check.
To find out more, visit New York Lottery’s Online Subscription Center today.
In 2012 it was revealed that £75m a year remains unclaimed, equating to more than £1.4bn in total. And we’re no different to other nations, by the way; last year $2.04bn of lottery prizes went unclaimed in the US.
Camelot, for its part, tries to find the winners in various ways. Unclaimed prizes are announced after two weeks, identifying an area of around 100,000 people to preserve the winner’s anonymity. From then on it contacts local media relevant to where the ticket was purchased, sometimes using publicity stunts, taking out local adverts and using social media. But it doesn’t always work.
So what happens to these prizes, and the interest that accrues on them? Different nations have different ways of dealing with unclaimed money. In Canada any unclaimed prizes return to the original pot, meaning that the winnings are made a little larger every week.
In the UK? Very simple: It goes into The National Lottery Good Causes Fund.
This is sad. It don't take that long to get lawyers and attorneys. That ticket is history.
let it go unclaimed !!!
Sad if someone who managed to beat the odds doesn't claim it, but great that it goes back into. win win either way.
This doesn't seem fair, with today's technology, most stores have cameras that could identify a winner.
I guess a small deli might not have a camera.
Does this mean the store owner doesn't get a bonus for selling the winner? I hope not.
And lastly, my nephew mentioned that he thinks an unclaimed jackpot should go to a worthy cause.....
Any unclaimed prize should go straight back to the players pot. The lottery suits rake in billions of dollars every year that they can donate to any worthy cause of their choosing. They should not pretend to be doing good by giving away the players money when they actually rake in billions that they can use for a real worthy cause.
It's easy to blame the "suits" for what happens to the money in cases like this. I still blame the person who buys the ticket and can't be bothered to check it. There's a guy in our pool at work who tells me "I bought a lotto ticket last week but I still haven't checked it". I tell him he's dumb. He claims he gets busy. Really?
My wife knows where I keep my tickets, so if I croak, she can check them.
Hard to believe but it may happen again.
I'd like to know what they mean by the money goes back into the pot. C4L is a fixed jackpot. How would you win part of the 7mill.
Hope someone find it in time. Time to clean out the dresser , the purse, the wallet, over the sun visor, glove compartment.......etc.
I'm not aware of NY ever doing anything specifically to give unclaimed prizes back to players, but they often have incentives of some sort. Things like buy 5 or 10, get one free, or increased prizes for P3 one week. Its possible that unclaimed prizes are used to fund things of that sort, instead of funding them from marketing costs, or general operating expenses.
Of course the way politicians do accounting it might just mean the money gets put into a general prize fund that's used to pay out various prizes, and at some point the remainder is transferred to a fund that pays other state expenses. That would make it technically true that the money was "put back in the pot", while still keeping it as extra profit a the end of the day.
It looks run down from the outside but most convenience stores in NYC have cameras. Whether they work or not is another thing. I pass this store all the time but it looks so bad I never bothered to buy tickets from there. Never judge a book...