Huge lottery jackpot is about to expire. Mystery Player was part of an incredibly rare giveaway

Huge lottery jackpot is about to expire. Mystery Player was part of an incredibly rare giveaway

Somewhere out there there is a clueless multimillionaire.

Last December, they bought one of two Mega Millions winning tickets at a Chevron gas station in Encino and are now owed $197.5 million in lottery money.

Until Saturday.

After that, ignorance will be a blessing to the would-be moneybags.

“We would like to see the rightful winner receive their prize money,” California Lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Becker said Wednesday. But if Saturday’s deadline to claim the prize passes, “my hypothesis and hope is that the winner will never know.”

This mystery winner was part of an incredibly rare Mega Millions lottery drawing.

Read more: Mega Millions plans to increase the ticket price to $5. Are you more likely to win?

The winning tickets were sold at the same gas station in California in the same month – and they were the only two winning tickets in the country.

Becker couldn’t say exactly how rare that happens, but she pointed out that Mega Millions is a multi-state game and there are more than 23,000 retailers selling tickets in California alone.

“When this happened last year,” she told the Times, “my mind was like this little brain-exploding emoji.”

However, if the golden ticket holder doesn’t get in touch by Saturday, there is a silver lining.

The money goes to schools in California. Not everything, however. The California Lottery’s job is to refund money to the states that contributed to the pot. Becker said about $80.5 million would be returned to the other states and about $13.8 million would be divided among California schools.

Schools have regularly benefited from people losing, throwing, or otherwise simply waiting for their lottery tickets.

“It’s fair to say that over the last five to 10 years we’ve averaged about $40 to $50 million per year unclaimed,” Becker said of the state’s lottery games.

In October 2025, the California Lottery will celebrate the 40th anniversary since the sale of its first ticket. During that time, more than $1 billion has gone unclaimed, she said, “and it’s all going to schools.”

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

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