Lottery.co.uk warns against losing lottery tickets

Lottery.co.uk, the premier web site for independent lottery news and views, has warned lottery players to be on their guard against losing their tickets after revealing that a large amount of money is still to be claimed by winners.

Lottery tickets might only cost a relatively small amount of money to buy, but they can be worth millions if the right numbers come up. Unfortunately, many people fail to take care of their lottery tickets and the end result is that they are unable to claim any prizes that those tickets win. Lost lottery tickets can therefore mean lost fortunes.

Winning UK Lottery players have 180 days to claim their prize, and if that deadline isn't met, the prize is forfeited as far as the player is concerned. In February 2006 a prize worth £9.4 million was forfeited by a customer in Yorkshire because of this rule, and although that is currently the biggest unclaimed prize on record, several other multi-million pound wins have also gone unclaimed.

According to Lottery.co.uk, the largest prize currently waiting to be claimed is for almost £450,000, with other unclaimed prizes coming to a total of over £1 million.

"Over the past few years an astonishing number of prizes have been forfeited," said a Lottery.co.uk spokesman, "In fact there is rarely a month in which at least a handful of prizes aren't waiting to be claimed, and many of these are worth five or six figures."

Prizes that aren't claimed in time to meet the 180 day deadline are added to a fund for good causes.

If a lost lottery ticket is found by someone else, any prize that the ticket has won may be legally claimed by the person in possession of the ticket due to a lottery ticket being a bearer instrument, which means it legally belongs to the person who holds it. Lost lottery tickets could therefore be claimed by anyone who is lucky enough to find one before the 180 day deadline has passed.

In an effort to stop prizes remaining unclaimed Lottery.co.uk has recommend that players buy lottery tickets online. Tickets bought online are uniquely associated with the individual. This means that they can't be lost and no prize won by a lottery ticket bought online can be claimed by anyone else.

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The Lottery Company Ltd
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