Jul 27, 2008 12:56 pm US/Pacific
Will The $174K Lotto Winner Please Stand Up!
LOS ANGELES
-
-
Someone out there has a Mega Millions ticket worth $174,575 and state lottery officials say they have until the close of business Monday to claim it. (File)
CBS
State lottery officials say whomever is holding a ticket worth $174,575 has until the close of business Monday to claim it, or it will be automatically donated to the state's school systems.
The Mega Millions ticket was purchased Jan. 29 at the 7/11 store at Grand Boulevard at Sixth Street in Corona, an outlet near the Riverside (91) Freeway, which links Los Angeles and Orange counties with Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The winner may have been a resident of a distant suburb who just popped into the 7/11 for a quick snack or gas and forgot about the ticket, officials said.
The ticket bears the five winning numbers: 8, 23, 39, 40 and 42, but lacks the winning Mega number, 24.
Khalid Mamood, a clerk at the Corona 7/11, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that people often come into the store and claim they hold winning tickets, but lost them.
"A man came in this week, and said he had the winning ticket in his car, but he opened the window as he was driving on the freeway, and it blew out the window," Mammood told the paper.
Whomever made this $174,575 blunder is not alone: Californians annually donate as much as $50 million a year to the state's school via unclaimed, lost or forgotten lottery tickets, the paper reported.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments