Unclaimed $1M Mega Millions NY ticket expires in December

Time is running out for the owner of a Mega Millions second-prize ticket worth $1 million to claim their loot before the ticket expires next month, a New York Lottery official said Monday.

“No one has claimed the prize as yet,” the New York State Gaming Commission told The News in an email.

Lottery officials have been urging whoever bought a Mega Millions ticket at Cold Cut Express on Dubois Ave. in Valley Stream, Long Island, N.Y., on Dec. 13, 2024, to rummage through junk drawers, root under couch cushions, and turn every single pocket inside out.

“Felt like there’s been something missing this year?” the New York Lottery posted on Facebook last week. “Check your old tickets to make sure it’s not that you’re the Mega Millions winner whose ticket is about to expire.”

The Mega Millions winning numbers on Dec. 13, 2024, were 36-43-52-58-65, with a Mega Ball of 16. Tickets matching all five numbers without the Mega Ball win second prize, a potentially life-changing sum in its own right.

Winners have a year to collect, but after that the winnings go back into the pot. For whoever bought the ticket in question, that will happen less than a month from now, on Dec. 13.

Nobody won that Dec. 13, 2024, drawing, but that didn’t stop more than 1.2 million other tickets from winning, Mega Millions officials said in a statement at the time. New York’s $1 million ticket was one of four second prizes, with the others sold in California, Massachusetts and Vermont — with the latter boosted to $3 million thanks to the optional $1 Megaplier.

While a handful of jackpots have gone unclaimed over the years, a far higher number of smaller prizes go begging, CNN reported in September.

Each year in New York, winners collectively forfeit about 1% of annual lottery revenue, the gambling and lotteries expert told the network.