There are plenty of unclaimed Louisiana Lottery winnings, around $9-10 million worth according to Kimberly Chopin from the Louisiana Lottery Corporation, the office that runs the state games as well as MegaMillions and Powerball Lotteries.
"There's winnings out there that people haven't come forward with their tickets yet," Chopin said. "You never know, you may be holding on to a $10,000 ticket or a $50,000 Powerball ticket."
In a bid to unite players with their winnings, the Louisiana Lottery Corporation is urging everyone who bought a ticket within the last 180 days to check their old tickets again or look anywhere a missing ticket could be hiding.
Latest data shows that while a lot of the tickets are for small $4 prizes there are some amazing unclaimed prizes that could really make a huge difference to somebody's life.
Unbelievably, a total of 286 tickets sold between November 2017-2018 make for a combined $1.7 million in unclaimed prizes of $600 and upwards.
"We had one winner who within 30 days his $50,000 prize was about to expire, his friend told him about an unclaimed prize he had heard about, and sure enough he was using his ticket as a bookmark," Chopin said.
If the bumper haul of money goes unclaimed the cash goes towards scratch-off prizes and a portion of all sales goes to the state treasury, specifically marked for education.
With all Louisiana Lotto draws, players have 180 days from the day of the draw to claim their prize if they have the winning ticket.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/NSCBOFXFKZH3FBCIQZKSL63N74.jpg)
