$1M Winner Forgot About His Lottery Ticket

$1M Winner Forgot About His Lottery Ticket

Posted: Thursday, Jan 10,2019 | Time: 12:34 pm | Edited by: The Lottery Lab Staff

Records show that billions of lottery winnings go unclaimed because people lose their lottery ticket or simply forget that they’ve bought a ticket in the first place. A recent incident highlighted this problem when a Michigan man realized he won a $1 million jackpot when he found his lottery ticket in his car two months after the drawing. Lottery officials report that Peter DeLuca, a resident of Michigan, purchased a lottery ticket on 13 October from a Kroger grocery store in Sterling Heights and forgot about the ticket almost immediately after purchasing it. After more than two months, on Wednesday, December 19, DeLuca found the lottery ticket in his car and took it to a local 7-11 to check if his numbers had won anything. To his surprise, the ticket was a winner. According to DeLuca, when the clerk scanned it, she told him that it was more than she could redeem at the time so she printed off the numbers from the drawing so he could check the ticket himself and see how much he’d won. As she read the numbers off, he was shocked to learn that he’d won a $1 million Jackpot. The winning numbers were 11-14-32-43-65 and his ticket had the same numbers printed on it. DeLuca said he often purchases a $2 lottery ticket, especially when the winning jackpot gets high. But this time, he completely forgot about the ticket he bought in October. According to state rules, he can’t redeem any prize higher than $599 at a retail store. So, he went to Michigan Lottery headquarters in Lansing, Michigan to collect his cash prize on Thursday. He says he’s lucky that he found his ticket in time otherwise he’d have lost his winning. There are various instances when a significant amount of winnings slipped through the fingers of winners. DeLuca is grateful that he’s not one of those! Read tips you should keep in mind to keep the jackpot/lottery winnings from slipping through your fingers. Although the winning really hasn’t completely hit the home yet, DeLuca plans on saving for his retirement. He is at peace now after knowing that he’s financially stable and plans to give careful thought to how he wants to spend it.