‘Just imagine’ losing $70M lotto ticket? Here’s how the OLG says you could still collect

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) says 99 per cent of all winning prizes are claimed every year. Among the elusive one per cent just happens to be a whopping $70 million Lotto Max jackpot that’s creeping precariously close to expiration on June 28, 2023.

Did the rightful owner also expire?

According to OLG’s Director of Media Relations, Tony Bitonti, the possibility that the person who bought the winning ticket in Scarborough died before scooping up their millions is just one of the many scenarios that could account for the riches remaining unclaimed.

Bitonti broke down some of those scenarios on Thursday and explained how the prize could still be awarded even if the ticket is never found.

Till death do us part?

“We have had customers who have passed away before claiming tickets in smaller prizes,” Bitonti told CityNews.

But this is no small prize.

So, would family be able to cash in if the ticket purchaser has already checked out?

“It does have to go through the lawyers, if there’s any provisions in the will, who is the executor of the will that type of stuff, so there is a process for that,” he explained.

“We have done that in the past, but hopefully somebody knows that this ticket exists. What if the person died and they (family) don’t know this ticket exists either?

“There are a million scenarios out there that could possibly happen, we are just hoping that the customer is still around and has maybe stored the ticket somewhere in a jacket, in a glove compartment, in the junk drawer in the kitchen.”

All is not lost

For now, the OLG is treating the unclaimed prize as a lost ticket, although the true fate of the winning slip remains a mystery.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that no one has checked the winning ticket of 8, 19, 22, 41, 42, 46, 47 Bonus 10.

“We know through data analytics that no one has checked the ticket either on (the OLG) app or at the self-checker,” Bitonti revealed. “If they’ve put it through the lottery terminal, then all the bells and whistles go off and we know automatically and that starts the claim process.

“No one has checked this ticket since the draw,” he stressed. “It’s quite unusual … which leads us to suspect potentially that the ticket has been lost but we don’t know for sure.”

Bitonti adds that people who win a large prize often incessantly check their tickets, sometimes 10 to 20 times, to make sure they’re not dreaming.

Can you collect the jackpot without the ticket?

“In theory, yes they can, because we have all this information about that ticket, information about exactly where it was purchased, what time it was purchased at, what other games did the customer buy with that ticket. Did they pay with a credit card or debit card or cash. So, we have all this information,” Bitonti notes.

“If someone lost the ticket and they can tell us that exact information, then there’s a very good chance that they can claim the prize and be deemed the rightful owner of that ticket even if it does not exist anymore.”

With such a large jackpot at stake, Bitonti said the burden of proof is fairly stringent, and the OLG forensics team would carefully assess any claims.

So far, no one has come forward.

“They have to produce this detailed information, and it has been done before. We have had people who have lost their tickets or had their tickets destroyed like in a pocket in the washing machine, or a dog has ripped it up — we’ve had these situations before, not for 70 million dollars, but for smaller prizes and we’ve been able to reconstruct tickets, or reconstruct the history of that ticket as well.

“There’s a lot of information that someone has to produce that has to match exactly what we have before we can deem them the rightful owner of that ticket and that prize.”

Finders keepers?

There could be some modern-day treasure hunters scouring every crevasse of Scarborough for the winning ticket, but could they actually collect if they found it?

“That has happened for smaller prizes,” Bitionti explained. “If you come in and you say this is my ticket we will ask you all of the questions, ‘where did you buy it?’ that sort of stuff. If you can’t answer the questions then we are suspicious, but if you come in and say ‘listen, I found this ticket’ then what we’ll do is put it on hold, we’ll put out some sort of announcement about the ticket and if nobody comes forward to claim the ticket and answers all those questions, then potentially the prize money could be yours, absolutely.”

“If the prize goes unclaimed it goes back into the (pool) for future prizing. It’s not OLG’s money,” he explained.

“We really do want this money to be paid out. We really don’t want to make history with this case because it will be the largest unclaimed prize in Canadian history if it does go unclaimed.”

Bitonti said there’s usually a rash of unclaimed tickets when the seasons change because people forget about out-of-season clothing and tickets can be forgotten in pockets that are packed away.

“We are urging people to check pockets, purses, backpacks, briefcases, anything.”