Louisiana Lottery Confirms – $2.5 Million Prize Yet to Be Claimed

Lottery players in Louisiana certainly have their share of luck. It seems as if almost every week we are reporting a ticket sold in in Louisiana for Powerball, Mega Millions, or one of the other popular draw games in the state as being a big winner. For our purposes, we define "big winner" as any single prize that is valued at $10,000 or more.

Speaking for myself, I would be overjoyed at a $10,000 return on a $2 lottery ticket. Most of us will never get to experience that but some of us do. And I would imagine that if I experienced that then I would be waiting at the nearest Louisiana Lottery office for them to open the doors the following day. Yes, I want my money.

But not everyone plays the lottery the same way. For many lottery players, a ticket purchase is an impulse buy. It's a one-off if you will. I can only speculate that maybe the winner of Louisiana's largest lottery jackpot prize for this year purchased their ticket on just such a whim.

I can't begin to imagine letting a ticket expire without it being cashed but believe it or not there are currently six tickets that have been identified as winners. Three of them are Powerball tickets. All of the Powerball tickets are worth $50,000. Those winners include tickets that were sold in Opelousas, Baton Rouge, and Mandeville. 

In the Mega Millions unclaimed winners bucket we find two tickets that are set to expire. Both tickets are valued at $10,000. One was sold in Leesville, it will expire on August 4th of this year. The other is a ticket sold in Abita Springs that will expire on Sunday the 18th. Yeah, just five days away.

However, the big ticket that has yet to be claimed comes from the Louisiana Lottery's Lotto game. That prize is a jackpot winner of $2.5 million. The winning ticket came from the January 31st drawing and the winner still has 167 days left to claim the prize. But still, $2.5 million? Why would you wait?

Or, maybe the winner doesn't know. Should we tell them?

By the way, unclaimed prizes from the Louisiana Lottery go back into games and promotions for players. So no. The state doesn't keep the money for the government, the money is used to enhance the lottery experience. Let's hope it won't get enhanced by $2.5 million and someone claims that ticket before it expires in July.