For nearly a year, a $24.1 million New York Lottery prize went unclaimed. The winner found the ticket just in time.
For nearly a year, a $24.1 million New York Lottery prize went unclaimed.
With little time remaining before the ticket’s expiration, lottery personnel amped up their efforts to reach its holder.
The plan worked. LOTTO winner Jimmie Smith, a 68-year-old retired security officer living in East Orange, New Jersey, said a recent local news segment about the unclaimed prize motivated him to look through a stack of unchecked tickets he’d stashed in a shirt pocket.
It turned out, the big winner was among them.
“I stood there for a minute thinking, ‘Do I see what I think I see?’ I had to stick my head out the window and breathe in some fresh air," Smith told the New York Lottery. "I was in serious doubt. I really had to convince myself this was real,”
He also suggested that he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do with his newfound fortune, saying he and his family were going to get together and discuss the matter.
Notably, Smith had put years of effort into winning the big prize. He revealed that he has been buying tickets since the 1960s.
