Lottery lesson: The largest unclaimed lottery ticket in Alberta's history happened in 2006
Forgetting to cash in on a winning lottery ticket is a shame no matter the prize amount, but imagine losing out on MILLIONS of dollars.
We got curious about the notion of that happening, so we reached out to the Western Canada Lottery Corporation (WCLC) to see what the largest unclaimed lottery ticket in Alberta’s history was.
The WCLC told Daily Hive in an email that it does not keep a running list of unclaimed prizes because most prizes that do expire are small, like free plays, $5 and $10.
The biggest of them all occurred back in June 2006, when a whopping $14.9 million expired on a Lotto 6/49 ticket.
“Since then, we have not had a win anywhere close to that amount expire,” said Megan Petricig, External Communications Strategist for the WCLC.
“In fact, I don’t believe we’ve had anything over $1 million expire since the June 2006 expiry,” Petricig added.
There are many reasons for a prize being claimed closer to its expiry date, with Petricig giving one example where “a winner claimed her prize more than seven months after the draw because she had gone into premature labor and, in her words, she “had more important things to do over the last few months.'”
Another common explanation for a delayed lottery claim comes to fashion — when the snow falls and the colder temperatures blow in, many Albertans throw on their winter jackets, and people end up finding tickets from last year in their pockets.
“It sounds silly, but it happens a lot,” she added.
If a Lotto Max or Lotto 6/49 prize were to expire, the prize amount is put into the Unclaimed Prize Fund, which is returned to players through guaranteed jackpots or promotional draws.