Luck may have run out for the winner of a California Lottery jackpot: The person has apparently let USD 63 million slip away.
Nobody showed up at a state lottery office by 5 pm yesterday with the ticket or submitted a verified claim for the prize, lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said.
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles seeks to have a judge declare a winner. Brandy Milliner contends he already turned in the ticket, but officials told him it was too damaged to be processed.
Traverso said the lottery is looking into the claim. "We do have some claims to investigate," he said in an email shortly before the 5 pm deadline.
"So we can say as of right now, no one has come forward with the winning ticket. But we have had lots of inquiries and the potential for more claims."
If none of the claims pan out, it will be the largest unclaimed prize in California Lottery history and the money will go to the state's schools.
Lottery officials had sent out repeated calls for the winner to contact them, and media coverage ramped up as the deadline dwindled to days and then hours.
"If by some miracle you happen to find this extremely valuable piece of paper, the California Lottery urges you to sign your ticket in ink and get it to one of our lottery district offices," a yesterday statement said.
The SuperLotto Plus ticket was sold on August 8 at a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles. The winning numbers were: 46-1-33-30-16 and the Mega number: 24.
A California winner also has not come forward to share in the January 13 multistate Powerball prize of USD 1.6 billion.
Two other winning tickets were sold in Florida and Tennessee, but only the Tennessee winners have claimed their cash so far.
Those claiming to be California Lottery jackpot winners routinely face an investigation to determine their credibility.
