$70 million lottery ticket sold in Ontario remains unclaimed after the deadline

After a large awareness campaign, no one has come forward with a $70 million lottery ticket to claim their prize by the deadline.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission (OLG) issued an alert in May, hoping the  owner of a $70 million Lotto Max winning ticket, sold at a lottery retailer in Scarborough, would come forward by June 28.

The search for the missing ticket has made headlines for the last few weeks but OLG confirmed this morning (June 29) the physical ticket was not validated at an OLG lottery terminal by the 10:30 p.m. deadline last night.

If an attempt is made to validate a lottery ticket past the one-year expiry date, the lottery terminal message to the customer will say the ticket has expired.

The OLG said the story “generated unprecedented media attention” and they received more than 1,100 calls from people claiming to have lost the ticket.

And it will take some time to check all these claims.

“We do need to do the due diligence and go through all of those calls and see if there’s a needle in the haystack,” Tony Bitonti told insauga.com yesterday.

OLG’s team of lottery investigators needs to review all potential claims made before the expiry deadline. After that process is complete, the OLG will provide a further update.

If the winner doesn’t come forward, this will be the largest unclaimed prize in Canadian lottery history.

And the $70 million prize will be returned to Lotto Max players through future bonus games or promotions.

To avoid unclaimed lottery prizes, OLG asks lottery players to:

• Sign their ticket as soon as it is purchased at a retail location;
• Keep the ticket in a safe and memorable location until draw time;
• Check the ticket as soon as the draw is complete; or
• Purchase a lottery ticket on OLG.ca and you will be notified by email if your ticket has won a prize.

Learn more about unclaimed tickets on the OLG.ca Unclaimed Tickets page.