- A $1 million Powerball ticket purchased in Michigan in May 2021 will expire in two weeks.
- No one claimed a $10 million prize in Maryland before the month’s deadline.
- Higher amounts have gone unclaimed in the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries.
After each drawing, Powerball participants should examine their numbers more closely.
A $1 million lottery ticket purchased a year ago in Michigan will expire in just two weeks, on May 5. And, just last month in Maryland, no one claimed a $10 million Powerball win by the deadline.
“You should check your ticket for all prize levels,” said Carole Gentry, a Maryland Lottery and Gaming spokesman. “Just because you didn’t win the lottery doesn’t mean you didn’t win anything else.”
The top prize for Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing is $370 million, dwarfing the unclaimed lower-tier prizes.
However, some jackpot awards in the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries have gone unclaimed.
They range in value from $16.5 million (one-third of a $50 million jackpot split three ways) to $77.1 million (one-third of a $50 million jackpot split three ways) for a ticket purchased in Florida in 2013.
Beyond the top rewards, smaller awards may go unclaimed due to misplacing a ticket, failing to check the winning numbers, or other accidents.
There are also state-specific lotteries with prizes that never make it into the hands of winners and the multistate games.
For example, no one came forward with a winning ticket for a single lottery prize totaling $63 million in California in 2016.
The length of time winners have to claim their rewards varies per state that participates in Powerball and Mega Millions. Some give you three or six months, while others give you a year from when the drawing is made.
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So, what happens to the prizes that aren’t claimed? The funds are returned to the states that sold the tickets in most cases.
After that, it’s up to the state’s rules. The monies must be returned to players in extra awards or second-chance contests in some jurisdictions. In some cases, unclaimed funds may be used for specific objectives, such as education funding.
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Mega Millions has a 1 in 302 million chance of winning. It’s 1 in 292 million for Powerball.
