Powerball: search is on for holder of unclaimed $1 million prize

Everyone likes a little extra cash, particularly when that cash amounts to a cool $1 million. Lotteries are big business in the US, with players spending an average of around $86 a month in 2019 on the various games on offer, according to a survey commissioned by Bankrate. As such it is a bit of a rarity when someone buys a lotto ticket and doesn’t think to check the numbers after the draw, but that is the case of a lucky (or perhaps soon to be very unlucky) Powerball ticket holder in Michigan.

Powerball is one of the biggest lottos in the States and dishes out multi-million-dollar cash prizes every week, including the five-number payout of $1 million. Lottery organizers in Michigan are now seeking the holder of such a winning ticket, which has been waiting to be claimed since last year. The expiry for cashing in winning tickets is one year, leaving the holder with just a week to come forward: the prize will become void on 5 May.

The ticket was purchased in a store on Mound Road in Warren, Michigan, a city of around 140,000 inhabitants, on 5 May 2021. The winning series of numbers were: 16-23-28-40-63.

As Powerball is a nationwide lottery, each state operates different criteria for cashing in prizes, but in Michigan the limit stands at 12 months. Winners must present the lucky ticket at a state lottery office to claim their prize. The customer service hotline is 844-887-6836.

What happens to unclaimed Powerball prizes?

If a winning ticket goes unclaimed, the money is simply returned to the state coffers for funding purposes, for example in educational budgets, or is returned to lottery players in the form of vouchers for future draws.

The California case

This is far from the first instance of a Powerball prize going unclaimed: in fact, the last occurrence was just a few days on 25 April, when a player in California lost out on $2.2 million after the winning ticket expired.