$50m Lotto Max Ticket Claimed Days Before Deadline
After a nail-biting campaign to get the winner of a $50 million Lotto Max lottery ticket to come forward and claim their prize, the British Columbia Lottery Corporation breathed a sigh of relief last week.
The lottery group confirmed that the potential multi millionaire handed in the ticket after holding on to it for over 11 months. The draw took place on March 14th, 2014, and the winner from Langley remained off the radar since then.
In a press release, the BCLC said that it was pleased with the appearance of the "genuine ticket", although it was still going through the process of determining that the prize belonged to the rightful ticket owner.
"We don't usually make this step in public," said a spokesman for the BCLC. "But because of the scrutiny and because it was expiring so soon, we decided to make this public now."
The BCLC will announce the identity of the winner at a news conference at an unspecified date and, for now, Canadians can only speculate why the winner held out for so long before he or she came forward.
Claims of Hiding Winning Lottery Ticket
It is unclear whether the winning ticket is connected to a civil claim made by a Burnaby woman in a BC Supreme Court against her co-worker.
Gayleen Elliott claimed in her lawsuit that Dalbir Sidbu used funds from their workplace pool to purchase lottery tickets for himself, and he is now preventing the group from getting their hands on their multi million dollar win.
According to Elliott, the ticket bought by Sidbu with the syndicate funds was actually the winning ticket of $50 million.
If this is the case, the truth will soon come out when the BCLC conducts its very investigation.
Loss of Revenue for Late Lottery Claim
Analysts have pointed out that the winner may have lost out close to $1,000,000 in interest for not investing the $50 million in time. However, others have said that this may have actually been a smart move.
According to the director of investments at financial group, Vancity, "waiting like this isn't necessarily a bad thing."
John Reid said that "people who make mistakes are the ones that moved too quickly."
Reid said that winning $50 million in one swoop could be "a game-changer" for the winner.
"Maybe the ticket holder just wanted to take their time and make sure they have all their ducks in a row," he said.
