“You’ve got to be in it to win it.” That’s New York State’s lottery slogan. Unfortunately, many people aren’t really in it when they buy a ticket. They buy it on a whim when the prize looks inviting, and then they never check back to see if they’ve won.
Many people, with the exception of expert lottery players, buy tickets praying for a payout. However, they have no real system for keeping up with things. Life intervenes when they get home, kids are screaming, the spouse needs dinner, they have to work late, and the ticket goes on the back burner. The back burner turns into the forgotten ticket and an unclaimed prize sitting in the junk drawer or in a pants pocket is now their new reality.
The current statistics of Ny lottery winners who have failed to claim their prizes to date in 2007 is in the millions. Winners missed a total 4.84 million in prizes that expired between April 1 and May 31st of 2007, and that statistic is just for prizes that were more than $10,000 each. This fact is according to John Charleson, a New York lottery spokesman. Tracking is less available for smaller prizes, but if this is any indicator, then...