$70M Lotto Max jackpot ticket ‘officially declared unclaimed,’ OLG says

globalnews.ca:

Lotto Max jackpot ticket from over a year ago has been “officially declared unclaimed,” the OLG says.In a news release on Thursday, OLG said it has not found the owner of the winning ticket purchased on June 28, 2022 at a lottery retailer in Scarborough.The unclaimed ticket made headlines earlier this year during a province-wide awareness campaign.Lottery winners have one year to claim their prize. On June 29 of this year, the OLG had confirmed that the physical $70 million Lotto Max ticket was not validated at a lottery terminal or presented to OLG by the year deadline of 10:30 p.m.

on June 28.The winning ticket was also never checked at a self-serve ticket checker or through the OLG App, the company said.The OLG said it formed a team to go through “an exhaustive examination” for thousands of individual claims — almost 2,700 — prior to the deadline.OLG said it was committed to “paying the right prize to the rightful owner of a winning ticket — every time.”“Due to the high volume of lost ticket claims, OLG’s dedicated team of lottery investigators took the time necessary to thoroughly review each and every potential claim. Now that this process is complete, we can report that none of those claims were successful,” the OLG said.“Thus, the $70 million prize is officially unclaimed.”The $70 million prize money has now been returned to the prize pool for future bonus games or promotions of national lottery games such as Lotto Max, Lotto 6/49 and Daily Grand.