Owner of Fresh Choice Merivale, Craig Grant speaks about how the store is celebrating the winning $33.5 million lotto ticket.
Video / George Heard
Winning the Lotto Powerball has become national news for more than a decade as millions across the country toss their hat in the ring every year.
Last week alone, nearly 1.5 million New Zealanders put their money on the line to change their fortunes with $33.5 million up for grabs- and one lucky player in Christchurch won it.
However, day eight for the player to claim their earnings has arrived and nobody has come forward yet, prompting questions of what happens next.
It’s hard to imagine sitting with a ticket to a multi-millionaire lifestyle and not cashing it in, but history shows us that - for whatever reason - million-dollar wins have slipped through the fingers of winners gone by.
Still nobody has claimed the winnings for a Lotto ticket worth $33.5 million. Photo / George Heard
Just why would somebody miss out on the chance to radically change their life forever, and how often does it occur?
First, it’s important to note that Lotto has a perfect track record of having every Lotto Powerball winner claim their prize - it’s rare the company even needs to initiate a search for its winner.
That said, the largest known Lotto New Zealand win to never be claimed was back in the early 2000s, when a ticket in Masterton won a cash sum of $3 million back in 2003.
But these are the only cases of million-dollar victories going uncelebrated, in fact, between 2013 and 2020 only three Division One prizes weren’t claimed before the money was taken away.
Along with the unclaimed ticket in 2015 were two $200,000 Strike tickets not cashed in 2017 - one was won in Porirua and the other in the small North Island town of Raetihi.
Lotto has a perfect track record of having every Lotto Powerball winner claim their prize. Photo / George Heard
Lotto told the Herald previously that only 2 per cent of all Lotto prizes go unclaimed in the average year.
Ticket winners will have 12 months to claim their winnings before the prize money goes back into a Lotteries Commission account for unclaimed prizes.
It’s not clear how much has gone into this account over recent years, but we do know between 2005 and 2010 there was $61.75 million of unclaimed cash that returned.
What Lotto did mention, however, was while the number of unclaimed winners was small, the lottery has had “hundreds” of players experience near-misses.
The most common reason why Lotto players take a while to cash in their ticket is, obviously, because they haven’t checked it yet.
Surprisingly, this can be the case for winners that take months to realise they’ve struck a jackpot.
Lotto has had “hundreds” of players experience near-misses.
While there have been cases of tickets being put through a washing machine and getting chewed up by dogs and babies, Lotto has an initial grace period for winners to come forward.
And winners certainly can take their sweet time to reveal themselves.
Back in 2010, an Auckland man claimed his $509,937 Lotto win only one day before the ticket expired. The reason? He put the ticket in his drawer and “forgot about it”.
“It was a bit faded but I noticed the date on it and thought I’d better get down to the shop quick just in case I’d won anything,” he said at the time.
Three years later, another Aucklander took seven months to take home his $1 million jackpot, a year later a woman’s $500,000 windfall drifted at the bottom of her handbag for six weeks before she realised.
In 2016 it took six months for a man in Hamilton to realise he was $333,333 richer.
When it comes to Powerball, however, the sums are much larger and Lotto is keen to quicken the process - so active searching will begin.
Despite multiple questions from the Herald, Lotto will not reveal specific approaches to how they’ll locate a winner. However, they have alluded to certain strategies that form the search process.
Head of Communications, Lucy Fullarton has previously confirmed CCTV will be used during searches, she also said contacting somebody through their bank is another option at their disposal.
Lotto will not reveal specific approaches to how they’ll locate a winner.
“We have some snippets of information about the winning ticket to pass on to a private investigator to locate the missing millionaire,” then head of communications Marie Winfield said.
A private investigator told the Herald at the time Lotto could find the day the ticket was bought, determine if the winner used a debit card and uncover the winner’s bank account to then get a name.
This process was seen when a Christchurch man won $22 million and was completely unaware of his victory for three weeks.
The man paid in cash, meaning Lotto couldn’t track his card, but video footage from the local Pak’n’Save narrowed the search down to one person.
Lotto’s chief operating officer ended up knocking on the man’s door and politely asked him to check his ticket, he’d been told by a work colleague the money had already been won.
However, Fullarton said Lotto is keen to keep their exact search methods a secret.
“We prefer not to go into too much detail about the process so that we don’t compromise either the process itself or the privacy of our winner,” she said.
“We are very careful in the way we go about finding someone, as keeping anonymity for our winners is key.”
History proves that Powerball winners can be slow to step forward and celebrate, there’s a good chance our most recent winner - the third largest Powerball jackpot ever - is either yet to check their ticket or still coming to terms with the life-changing money.
