LONDON (AFP) - The holder of a British lottery ticket worth nearly 10 million pounds (14.5 million euros, 17.2 million dollars) lost it all, when the six-month deadline for claiming the winnings expired.
He or she had until 5:30 pm (1730GMT) to collect, or forfeit the entire amount.
Most likely, the unlucky winner, from Doncaster in South Yorkshire in northern England, simply forgot to check the ticket, bought on July 6 last year, which would have made him or her 9,476,995 pounds richer.
According to lottery rules, if winners fails to recoup their bounty within six months, the money is automatically given to a charitable organization.
Had the ticket holder placed his or her windfall into a savings account immediately, a British newspaper calculated, an extra 300,000 pounds (437,000 euros, 517,000 dollars) in interest would have accrued.
The largest unclaimed lottery prize in Britain to date has been seven million pounds (10.2 million euros, 12 million dollars). But in the 11 year history of the lottery only 23 winning tickets with a value of a million pounds or more have been left unclaimed.
I guess you get so used to not winning, you might just bin the ticket thinking you had checked it, atleast the money now gos to good causes, thats one good thing to come out of this situation.
