$41.3 Million Lottery Hits
Although the winner of Wednesday's Lotto 6/49 draw still hasn't come forward to collect his or her incredible $41.3 million prize, it is early days yet.
According to a spokesman for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming corporation, Tony Bitonti, users often take weeks or even months before they step forward to claim their prize.
"Some winners get everything in order, wait for the hype to die down a bit, then they'll come forward and claim their money," he said. Many times, the winners have used this period to consult with lawyers or financial advisors before they go public with their win.
Wednesday's winning ticket was purchased in Niagara Falls, which means that there is a strong chance that the winner was a tourist just passing through, who hasn't even had time to check the winning ticket. As such, there may be someone walking around who doesn't know that he or she is a millionaire forty times over.
Bitonti said about such players: "Some of them say, 'You know what? I had it in my drawer and I forgot to check it'".
Hopefully, the winner will step forward within a year, which is when the ticket expires. The OLG is still waiting impatiently for the July 8th winner to step forward, as the lottery corporation has $21.4 million Lotto Max funds waiting to go to their new home.
Identifying Features
Nevertheless, OLG has many identifying features for the winning ticket from Wednesday, including where it was bought, what time it was purchased and how often those particular numbers were played at that location.
"Those are the kind of questions we ask them to make sure they are the rightful owners of that ticket," said Bitonti. "Our motto is, we want to pay the right prize to the right person."
If a lottery ticket is checked at a retail store and the win is over $5,000, a caller from OLG's support will contact the retailer "within seconds" and ask to speak to the ticketholder.
"Ninety nine point nine percent of the time they're still hopping and hollering, or in stunned silence," said the spokesman. "We speak to the person claiming to have the winning ticket and we give them the information on how to claim the ticket."
