Powerball jackpot worth $51 million goes unclaimed

Tom Davies

Friday, March 14, 2003 | 9:54 a.m.

INDIANAPOLIS -- In a mighty expensive case of carelessness, a $51.7 million Powerball jackpot has apparently gone unclaimed.

The Hoosier Lottery's offices closed Thursday -- the last day to claim the jackpot -- without anyone showing up with the winning ticket from the Sept. 14 drawing, lottery spokesman Andrew Reed said.

The ticket potentially could still be redeemed if it was turned in by midnight or mailed with a Thursday postmark, but Reed said lottery officials suspected the ticket bought at a convenience store near Indianapolis International Airport was lost long ago.

"There are a couple other scenarios, in case someone slides a ticket under the office door or tries to contact one of our guards, we'll do what we can," he said.

The jackpot would be the first time since Powerball began in 1992 that a jackpot went unclaimed. The game is now played in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Neither has a Hoosier Lotto jackpot gone unclaimed by the winner, Reed said.

The missing ticket -- with numbers 5, 14, 26, 31, 40 and Powerball 29 -- was sold at a Crystal Flash station on Girls School Road.

It was one of two that matched the winning Powerball numbers drawn Sept. 14 for a $103 million jackpot. The other half of the jackpot -- from a ticket sold in Pennsylvania -- was claimed months ago.

The Indiana lottery office had been airing commercials and holding events at the store for months in an effort to find the winner.

"We got local and national media coverage on it, so we think we did what was humanly possible to jog somebody's memory," Reed said. "At this point it doesn't look like it helped at all."

Lottery officials were not sure whether any larger U.S. jackpot had gone unclaimed.

The rules for Powerball give winners 180 days after a drawing to produce the ticket. Once the deadline passes, the cash amount of the jackpot is distributed among the participating states.