We may never know who the rightful winner of this prize was, or indeed why he or she didn’t come forward to claim it, but it is fair to say that the root cause was the fact that the winning lottery ticket had been purchased from an offline retailer. When any lottery ticket is purchased offline, the player risks losing that ticket, having it stolen or perhaps even accidentally destroyed, and any of those events would make it impossible to submit a claim. Offline players therefore need to be extremely careful to keep their tickets in a safe place, to check the lottery results as soon as possible after every draw and to make any claim required without delay.
Of course, the risk of losing a winning lottery ticket (or having it stolen or destroyed) can be avoided very easily by getting into the habit of playing online. EuroMillions players can buy their tickets online for up to eight draws in advance, and if any online ticket wins a prize the owner is notified by email so that any required claim can be made straight away. If the British player had played online then he or she would now have an extra £63.8 million in the bank instead of setting a new record for the biggest unclaimed lottery prize in UK history.
For those of you who purchased tickets for the EuroMillions game on Tuesday 4 December, it would be a good idea to check to see if any of them won a prize of any kind, and to make any claim required as soon as possible. The main numbers drawn on Tuesday were 05, 10, 28, 29 and 44, and the Lucky Star numbers were 02 and 04. No ticket matched all seven numbers and so the next EuroMillions jackpot this Friday 7 December will be worth a massive €54 million (around £44 million). Click here to buy your tickets online and if you win big you’ll be notified by email!