The winner has 365 days from the date of the drawing to claim the jackpot at Lottery headquarters in Topeka, or the Lottery’s regional office in Great Bend.
The buyer of a Hot Lotto ticket in south-central Kansas is $12.2 million richer, but still hasn’t came forward! I hope they didn’t lose their ticket or throw their gum away in it.
The New York Lottery’s latest raffle-style game, the Turkey Raffle, was drawn today, Thanksgiving Day, and made five instant millionaires.
New York’s Turkey Raffle is a raffle game offered by the New York Lottery, with a limited period of availability and a limited number of $10 tickets.
Tickets went on sale Nov. 3, and ticket sales were to stop Nov. 26 or earlier if the supply of tickets ran out.
The winning numbers were announced at 10:00 AM this morning, Nov. 27, 2008.
Each raffle ticket contains a unique, nine-digit number issued sequentially across the state from the Lottery’s central computer, starting with number 100000000.
George Smith is the epitome of a good boy. For the past five years, the 48-year-old Meaford, Ontario man has been buying Super 7 lottery tickets with his mom.
They’ve split the cost of the relatively cheap entries but it’s never really paid off.
Until now.
George, along with his mom and dad, came to Toronto Tuesday to claim the big prize in last week’s draw — a $15 million jackpot.
The winner isn’t your flamboyant, screamingly excited, happy dance type. He’s a quiet spoken man with a modest manner about him. And that’s what he presented to the public as officials gave him a cheque with more zeros on it than he or his family have ever seen.
His adventure began when he stopped into a local convenience store after coming home from work Sunday night. “The first ticket I put in and the thing said ‘you won $15 million!’ And then I went to the girl at the counter and I said, ‘I think I won $15 million.’”
But in his laid back way, it was the clerk who seemed more excited at the news than he did. At least outwardly.
“She was just having a real problem containing herself,” he recalls laconically. “She was so excited.”
But despite his outwardly calm demeanour, George was also stunned.
“I was rather shaking at the time,” he remembers now. “I called my parents and I don’t think they really believed me,” he shrugs. His 77-year-old mother Wyn was alarmed by the call, when George first asked to speak to his father.
“And [then] I said, ‘I guess I better go home and tell my wife.”
But she didn’t believe him, either.
But what about Ray Smith, the forgotten dad and husband in this monetary miracle? “My wife keeps reminding me she won it, I didn’t,” he points out. “So I am just hoping she’ll share it with me.”
George has been playing the lottery with his mom for five years but has actually put a few bucks on a chance at big money since way back in the days of the Olympic draws. He won about $90 in that effort — and that only happened once.
So what do they plan to do with the windfall? George is pretty modest about that, too. They’ll be paying off several family mortgages and getting rid of some pesky student loans.
But one thing won’t change — he doesn’t intend to give up his job as part of his family owned business, building houses in Collingwood.
Now, he can lay the foundations for one of his own, hoping to start construction in the spring, something he’s never been able to afford before. “I guess that’s no longer an issue,” he laughs.
As for the money changing the kind of people they are? Don’t count on it. “I had to get some dress pants and shoes because my old ones don’t fit,” George notes. “I went to Wal-Mart and some things never change.”
Smith is well aware his twist of fortune comes at a time when the economy is in crisis, homes aren’t selling and the markets have taken a deep dive.
But he plans to help out as best he can. “We’re not recession proof,” he jokes, “but we’ll do our best to stimulate the economy!”
One lucky person quit worrying about the plunging markets, layoffs and other economic woes Saturday night after winning the Wisconsin Megabucks lottery.
State Lottery spokesman Andrew Bohage said a single ticket matched all six numbers and won the jackpot, worth $9.1 million if the winner chooses to take the payments in 25 installments, or worth $5.1 million if the winner takes the one-time lump-sum cash payout.
Odds of winning the Megabucks jackpot are 1 in 7 million, Bohage said.
The Wisconsin Lottery says the winning ticket was purchased at the purchased at the Q-Mart store at 2420 Calumet Drive in Sheboygan.
The winner has 180 days to come forward and claim the prize.
Caleb Steele left his job long enough Thursday morning to collect the $500,000 prize he won on a scratch-off lottery ticket at a Duluth store. Then it was back to work — installing a basketball court in the yard of a nearby home.
“I’m a working man,” said Steele, 35, of Acworth.
There was nothing unusual about him buying a $5 Players’s Club lottery ticket on Nov. 7, the day his mother celebrated her birthday. He had previously won up to $100 playing scratch-off games.
A few days later, on his seventh wedding anniversary, Steele and his wife Nicole headed to Atlanta to the Georgia Lottery office with the winning ticket, which must be validated before a prizes are claimed. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 1,440,000. After taxes, Steele collected $345,000.
Steele’s most recent ticket won him the top prize in the Player’s Club game.
When he realized he’d won last Friday, he immediately called his wife.
“I asked her if she loved me, and then I went to work,” said Steele, a contractor who installs epoxy floors and sports courts.
Many of his company’s clients are based in north Fulton and Gwinnett, so he stopped at a Duluth Chevron on State Bridge Road before he headed to a job.
That night, he and his wife started planning a future that will be debt-free. They will also have a good Christmas.
“These are hard times, and I want to do what we have to survive,” said Steele, after accepting an oversized check from a state lottery official at a press conference.
Store owner John Copeland of Marietta said Steele is the biggest scratch-off winner he’s had. He owns two stores, but at one time ran as many as ten.
After the excitement of the lottery press conference, it was business as usual for Copeland and his workers.
“It’s going to be quiet and boring here the rest of the day,” store worker Sondra Martin said.
A 56-year-old Kansas City woman wins a $1.7 million Missouri Lotto jackpot.
The Missouri Lottery announced Tuesday that Carmen Salva bought the Nov. 5 ticket at a Fast Stop in Kansas City by using the Quick Pick option to select the winning numbers of 20, 24, 26, 31, 35 and 42.
Lottery officials say 265 tickets worth $1 million or more have been sold since Missouri Lottery sales started in January 1986.
Someone in PENN matched the powerball lotto draw for $58.6mil. The indentity of the winner has not been released.
Payment options:
29-year, 30-installment annuity for $58.6mil, or take the one time cash “lump sum” amount of $30,207,012.
JoAnn and Dean Wilcoxon chose to take an annual annuity of $383,000 for the next 30 years after winning the $11.5mil Hoosier Lotto Jackpot. They get their first check on Monday.
These people are from New Haven Indiana. They will now live as kings.
