By REBECCA DEVINE in Rotorua
Imagine winning Lotto - and then not claiming the money.
It seems unbelievable but it has happened, and more than just once.
A Rotorua person could be sitting on an easy $50,000 with a ticket sold at Rotorua's Books and More in
the Central Mall at Easter still unclaimed.
Then there's the case of the ticket worth $2.6 million sold in Rotorua three years ago which will forever remain unclaimed. Nobody came forward with the winning ticket which was sold at Paper Plus in Tutanekai St in October 2002.
Lotto winners have one year to redeem their prize.
Books and More owner Heather Jenkins said she was still hopeful the $50,000 winner would come forward with the voucher from the Easter prize draw. It was given out with a triple dip purchased as part of a special Easter promotion.
She's got her fingers crossed that it's a local, but with the number of people in town over the long weekend she said it could have been anyone.
Rotorua's Lucky Lotto Shop in Tutanekai St has sold the largest number of winning tickets in Rotorua, boasting 364,376 winning tickets since Lotto began in August 1987.
Sitting on unclaimed money was more than just a figure of speech for one of Dennis Chard's customers.
The owner recalled a time a man approached the counter with a bunch of tickets he had saved for over two months. The tickets were put through the machine but none was a winner. The man then remembered he had a ticket in his back pocket that had been through the wash a few times. The battered ticket cleaned up $1498.
