Three days after lottery officials declared that there was no winner for a US$46 million multi-state lottery prize, the ticket arrived at lottery headquarters in New Jersey. It was in the mail, posted two days before the one-year deadline for the lucky player to step forward.
Perhaps it was a test, albeit an incredibly expensive one, of the US Postal Service.
Or perhaps it was a case of extreme procrastination.
But yesterday, New Jersey's acting governor, Donald DiFrancesco, was to present the winnings to the lucky ticket holder, whose name and residence lottery officials withheld.
But the officials did outline what happened with the ticket.
Sometime in June last year, the future winner bought a Big Game lottery ticket at Krauszer's Convenience Store in Montvale, New Jersey, which is just south of the New York State border.
The drawing for the seven-state lottery was June 9, 2000. The winning numbers were 6, 7, 25, 34 and 45, and the Big Money Ball number was 2.
Then the months began passing.
The drawing drew a flurry of attention as its one-year anniversary approached, because that is the deadline for prizes to be claimed before the money is returned to the coffers of New Jersey and the other participating Big Game states: Michigan, Virginia, Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois and Maryland.
"Everybody is like: `Maybe the winner threw it into the garbage or maybe the guy is dead,'" said Mahendra Patel, the manager at Krauszer's. "I have no idea what time the ticket was sold. But I've had more customers than usual. They think we're a lucky store."
Patel said the news of the belated winning was a miracle, but he will not share in it. Unlike the winner, his timing was a bit too far off. He bought the store several months ago, so the US$10,000 dollar commission destined for the seller of the winning ticket will go to the store's previous owner.
One state lottery official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared that the winner did not know the ticket's value, even though the validation slip indicates the winning amount.
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