Owner of Fresh Choice Merivale, Craig Grant speaks about how the store is celebrating the winning $33.5 million lotto ticket.
Video / George Heard
Someone in Christchurch is a multi, multi-millionaire but either doesn’t know it or is yet to take any steps thus far to claim their prize.
Roughly 1.4 million Lotto Powerball tickets were sold across the country last week when it was announced that $33 million would be up for grabs and one person got lucky.
But despite Lotto confirming on Wednesday night a winning ticket, worth $33.5m, had been sold in the Christchurch suburb of Merivale, a week has now passed and no winnings have been claimed.
It’s not so much a headache for the Lotto till which sold the winning ticket, staff have walked away with fond memories of celebrating their successful ticket sale last Thursday.
Instead, the responsibility now falls to Lotto itself - which will soon begin actively searching for the Powerball winner.
Roughly 1.4 million Lotto Powerball tickets were sold across the country last week when it was announced that $33 million would be up for grabs. Photo / George Heard
So, why hasn’t the winner come forward yet? Lotto’s head of communications Lucy Fullarton told the Herald there could be a variety of reasons why the winning ticket has not yet been presented.
“It’s usually because people simply haven’t checked their ticket,” she said.
“They may be on holiday or busy or have forgotten they bought it in the first place.”
Fullarton said Lotto has experienced a rare occasion when a customer knows they’ve won a prize, but delays claiming the winnings while they process the news and decide on their next steps.
“But for the most part, as soon as someone knows it’s a winner, they want to safely claim their prize.”
Lotto will give the ticket winner a couple more weeks to come forward, and then an active-searching process for the winner begins - to find the winner and tell them they need to claim the winnings.
“It’s a balancing act as we’d like the winner to find out themselves and have that ‘winning ticket’ experience if possible, but we also want to make sure they receive their prize in a timely manner,” she said.
While Fullarton said Lotto has a “robust process” for finding its winners, this time the search will be slightly more complicated as the ticket was sold in-store.
“Finding the winner is less straightforward than if they’d bought their ticket online as we can track First Division MyLotto winners through our system,” she said.
“[The process] involves several different options depending on how and where the customer has bought their ticket.”
The winning ticket was sold in the Christchurch suburb of Merivale, but no winnings have been claimed yet. Photo / George Heard
Fullarton is tight-lipped over the specifics of what that process looks like, but she did reveal CCTV is one of the methods used to find the winner.
“Most Powerball winners claim their prize within a few days of winning, there have only been a handful of occasions where we’ve had to go out and look for them.”
Given the finite number of times Lotto has needed to go on the hunt, giving a “typical” timeframe for finding a winner isn’t straightforward.
“But we would usually be talking weeks rather than months,” she said.
There is a deadline, although it’s highly unlikely it would be passed if such a large prize has gone unnoticed.
If 12 months pass and the winner has still not been found, the winnings of the third-largest Lotto claim in the country’s history will be returned to Lotto’s Prize Reserve Fund.
This fund will be used for future draws and promotions.
“Ultimately, because one hundred per cent of our profits are distributed to the community through the Lottery Grants Board, this is where any additional funds will go,” said Fullarton.
