Here's why these Canadian lottery winners almost missed out on their prizes
Imagine winning the lottery only to nearly miss the chance to claim your prize. Believe it or not, it does happen.
In fact, time is running out to claim a Lotto 6/49 Gold Ball prize worth $64 million. According to the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC), a winning Lotto 6/49 ticket was sold in Gloucester County, New Brunswick, last year, and until now, no one has come forward to claim the prize.
“The Lotto 6/49 $64 million winning ticket is set to expire on April 15, 2024,” states the caption of an ALC Instagram post. “If you believe you may have the winning ticket, be sure to contact our customer care centre before plans for a big celebration spoil.”
So, after spending money on lottery tickets, why would people not come forward to claim their winnings?
According to Tony Bitonti, spokesperson for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), sometimes people simply forget.
Bitonti said that people tend to put their tickets in jacket pockets where they sit forgotten in the closet when the weather changes. Other tickets end up in glove compartments or junk drawers.
These lottery players nearly missed the chance to claim their prizes.
Marc Lauzon
Loto-Québec
Talk about cutting it close â one lottery player found his winning ticket just 12 days before it expired.
Marc Lauzon from Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Quebec, received a Célébration ticket as a Christmas gift in 2022 and discovered he won $50,000. However, he hid the ticket in a book, intending to claim his prize later.
But it turns out that he hid it too well because he couldn’t find it when he finally wanted to claim the windfall. After months of searching, Lauzon finally found the ticket tucked into a book. The lottery winner found it in the nick of time, just 12 days before the deadline to claim the prize on January 8, 2024.
Fortunately, Lauzon was able to claim the $50,000 before the date. He said he plans to invest his winnings.
Shuai Wang
OLG
Shuai Wang is a mom from Newmarket, Ontario, who has been playing Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max ever since she signed up for OLG’s lottery subscription during the pandemic. But when OLG emailed her, alerting her that she had won $1 million, she thought it was junk and swiftly deleted the email.
“Later that day, I was looking at my phone and saw another email, so I decided to log into my OLG account. Even then, I still thought it was a mistake,” she said while picking up her winnings at the OLG prize centre in Toronto.
“I told my husband when he got home from walking the dog, and he thought I was joking. No matter what I said, he still didn’t believe me!”
She said she planned to celebrate her win by travelling somewhere warm with her family.
Annie Austin
CarpathianPrince/Shutterstock | WCLC
On an afternoon in late July 2022, Alberta resident Annie Austin was looking for something in her purse when she found a forgotten ticket for the June 28 Lotto Max draw.
“I took it into the store to check with some other tickets,” Austin recalled to the Western Canada Lottery Corporations (WCLC) as she claimed her prize. “What a surprise it was when I saw all the zeroes!”
After matching the winning numbers, the Fort MacLeod resident won a Lotto Max Extra prize worth $100,000.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said.
Sandipkumar Patel
OLG
It’s a good thing Sandipkumar Patel, 43, got the sudden urge to tidy up, or he wouldn’t have found a lottery ticket he bought almost a year ago.
Patel, a resident of Arnprior, Ontario, was cleaning one day when he unearthed something unexpected.
“I was cleaning out my drawer, and I found this ticket, so I scanned it on the OLG app and saw I won big,” he said.
A Lotto 6/49 ticket he had purchased in 2023 was a winner, instantly making him $1 million richer.
He said he’ll use his winnings to pay his mortgage, while the rest will go towards investments and savings.
He added, “I can now say I’m a millionaire!”
Stéphanie Vila
Loto-Québec
StĂ©phanie Vila was cleaning out her wallet a few days before going on vacation to ensure she wasn’t forgetting anything. That’s when the MontĂ©rĂ©gie, Quebec, resident found several lottery tickets buried in her wallet for a few months.
When she scanned her ticket at the self-serve ticket checker, Vila saw that she’d won and noticed several zeroes but thought, “This can’t be right. The machine isn’t working properly.”
It turns out that Vila won $1 million in the Lotto Max draw on October 18, 2022. Thankfully, she could claim her windfall on September 18, 2023âjust one month before the deadline to claim the prize.
Vila plans to invest the money and use some of it to travel abroad.
Ivelin Radevski
Shutterstock | WCLC
Ivelin Radevski of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, had just returned home from vacation when he realized he had a couple of lottery tickets that he still hadn’t checked.
“I hadn’t scanned the tickets until we got back from vacation,” Radevski recalled. “I had checked quite a few times to ensure there was no mistake.”
But when he discovered that one ticket was a winner, he scanned it ten more times just to be sure. Radevski was thrilled to learn that his Western Max ticket won in the August 16, 2022, draw, and he was now $100,000 richer.
“I was quite happy,” he chuckled.
Chris Leggatt
OLG
A forgotten lottery ticket turned into a big win for one Ontario man.
One day, Schomberg resident Chris Leggatt noticed a lottery ticket in his car’s cup holder. So he pulled up the app on his phone to scan it and couldn’t believe the result: he had won the Lotto Max second prize of $70,828.60 in the August 2, 2022 draw.
“My colleague heard the Big Winner sound and said, ‘Are we rich?’ I showed him the screen and said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I am!'” said Leggatt, who treated everyone to coffee the next day.
Shai Minaker
OLG
When Shai Minaker’s dad gave her a lottery ticket for Christmas in 2022, she suddenly remembered that he had also given her another ticket nearly a year ago.
“When my dad gave me my Crossword Tripler ticket as a Christmas gift last year (2022), I realized I still had a ticket from the year before I didn’t play,” she recalled. “I played this one last and didn’t realize how many words I got until I scanned the ticket.”
The Omemee, Ontario resident was amazed to discover that she won the game’s top prize: an impressive $100,000.
“It’s an out-of-body experience,” she said.
Shai Minaker said she planned to use her winnings to go on a honeymoon, finish some home renovations, and put the rest into savings.