December 30th 2024.
As the New Year approaches, many Australians may have a pleasant surprise waiting for them if they only checked their lottery tickets. The Lott has announced that there are a whopping 24 major lottery prizes worth over $21.42 million that are still unclaimed throughout the country. That's a lot of cash left on the table!
Interestingly, 10 of these unclaimed prizes are worth a million dollars or more. The oldest unclaimed division one win is from Queensland, where a lucky ticket bought in Helensvale won a Saturday Gold Lotto prize of more than $671,000 back in August 2018. According to The Lott spokesperson Matt Hart, the most recent and largest unclaimed prize is from Kiama, where a ticket was purchased just last month and won a Set for Life prize of $4.8 million. Another winning ticket worth the same amount was sold in Woden, Canberra, more than three years ago in April 2021.
It's surprising to learn that these winning tickets were not registered to a player card or an online account, making it impossible for lottery officials to contact the mystery winners and hand over their prizes. Out of the 24 unclaimed tickets, 12 are from New South Wales, five from Queensland, two each from the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, and Western Australia, and one from South Australia.
Hart explains that the time frame for claiming lottery prizes varies from state to state. In Queensland, winners have seven years to claim their prizes, while in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, they have six years. In Victoria, winners only have 12 months to claim their prizes directly from The Lott, after which they can claim from the Victorian Government.
Let's take a closer look at some of these unclaimed major lottery prizes across Australia. In total, there are 24 prizes that have gone unclaimed, with the earliest one dating back to August 2018. The list includes various types of lottery games, such as Saturday Gold Lotto, Lucky Lotteries Mega Jackpot and Super Jackpot, Set for Life, Monday & Wednesday Lotto, TattsLotto, and Weekday Windfall. The amounts vary from $74,697 to an incredible $4.8 million, with the majority of prizes falling between $100,000 and $1 million.
It's quite unfortunate that these winners have yet to come forward and claim their prizes, as they missed out on a life-changing amount of money. The Lott urges all lottery players to check their tickets, as you never know if you could be the lucky winner of one of these unclaimed prizes. After all, it would be a shame to start the New Year without knowing you're a millionaire!
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
