How would you like to be this guy??

Time Runs Out To Claim Lotto Texas Jackpot

(Austin, January 10) - The proverbial clock has stopped ticking for the July 13, 2002, Lotto TexasTM jackpot to be claimed The 180-day deadline for the ticket holder to step forward expired yesterday at midnight.

The Texas Lottery Commission had activated its "Countdown Processing Team" and was waiting at Austin headquarters in case anyone showed up with the ticket before the deadline, Thursday, January 9 at midnight.

The Team fielded numerous phone calls from people who had heeded the suggestion to "look under couch cushions, in old junk drawers, and the visors of their cars" and found tickets for the July 13th drawing. However, none of them was the winner. The six numbers to match were: 29-42-22-8-11-5.

The jackpot was worth $9 million. Whoever bought the ticket chose the Cash Value Option, making the ticket worth $5,184,917.

The winning ticket was purchased at 7-Eleven, located at 3329 Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas. The retail owner received a bonus of 1 percent - $90,000 - for selling the winning Lotto Texas ticket.

The ticket now earns its place in Texas Lottery history as the third Lotto Texas jackpot ticket to go unclaimed in the game's 10-year history.

The first was from the October 26, 1994, drawing. That ticket, worth $12.4 million, was sold in Flower Mound and was not claimed by April 25, 1995. The second ticket, for a jackpot worth an estimated $13 million, was sold in Humble for the June 23, 2001, Lotto Texas drawing. The ticket expired on December 20, 2001, with a Cash Value Option of $7.3 million.

Since the jackpot was not claimed, the value of the ticket, $5,184,917, will be transferred to the Tertiary Care Facility Account, which funds indigent healthcare at medical facilities throughout the state.

Since September 1, 1999, the first $40 million in unclaimed prize money in each biennium is transferred to the Multicategorical Teaching Hospital Account, which helps support the teaching programs and indigent health care at UTMB-Galveston. Any amount over the $40 million is transferred to the Tertiary Care Facility Account.

The estimated jackpot for Saturday's Lotto Texas drawing is worth $25 million.

******

Could you imagine being the guy who finds this ticket in the glove box of their car......ouch!