LOS ANGELES (AP) – With hours to go and $63 million on the line, the mystery remains: Where’s the winning California Lottery ticket and why hasn’t somebody cashed it?
Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said Wednesday that even he wants to know why the SuperLotto Plus winner let six months pass without claiming the prize.
Whatever the reason, it won’t be a good enough excuse if the 5 p.m. Thursday deadline passes and nobody produces the ticket at a lottery office. “Unfortunately, the rules are the rules,” Traverso said.
The lottery has repeatedly issued statements urging the winner to come forward before the deadline. “We hope they’ll turn their house upside down” to find the ticket, Traverso said Wednesday at the Van Nuys office.
Traverso said he had watched people claim “a thousand bucks here, a thousand bucks there … but nothing for the big one.”