Any Powerball players who bought a ticket 51 weeks ago in Des Moines need to check their old tickets for a big winner. The Iowa Lottery gives winners a year to claim their prizes, and the ticket sold at the MLK HyVee store on March 11th last year is worth 200-thousand dollars.
The Lottery’s Tina Potthoff says it’s possible this jackpot will just fade away. Potthoff says "This is a significant prize. $200,000 is a lot of money to go unclaimed, but we’re hoping someone will step forward in the next seven days." She says this winner is getting 366 days to come forward.
Potthoff says the winning ticket’s drawing was March 11th, 2006, a date that falls on a weekend this year, so they’ll have until the end of business next Monday, March 12th, to come forward. For large prizes, Potthoff says it’s always recommended winners, don’t, come forward right away until they have their affairs in order, but they don’t usually wait 51 weeks. She says "It’s hard to say whether or not the prize is going to be claimed this late in the game. We always encourage people to check and double-check their tickets."
Potthoff says it’s rare for a winner to not step forward for a prize of this size, though in all of last year, one-point-two million dollars went unclaimed in Iowa Lottery games. She says "All unclaimed prize money from the Iowa Lottery goes toward future prize pools for our players, so if no one claims this 200-thousand dollar ticket, that’s what it’ll be used for."