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Somewhere there is a millionaire who knows nothing.
Last December, they bought one of two winning Mega Millions tickets at a Chevron gas station in Encino and now owe $197.5 million in lottery debt.
Until Saturday.
After that, ignorance will be bliss for those who want to get rich.
“We want to see legitimate winners receive their prizes,” California Lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Becker said Wednesday. But even after Saturday’s deadline to claim the prize passes, “my hypothesis and hope is that the winner will never know.”
This mystery winner was part of a very unusual drawing for the Mega Millions lottery.
The winning ticket was sold in the same month at the same gas station in California and was one of only two winning tickets in the United States.
Becker couldn’t say exactly how unusual an event it is, but Mega Millions is a multi-state game, with more than 23,000 retailers selling tickets in California alone. I pointed out.
“When this happened last year, my heart was like a little emoji whose brain was about to explode,” she told the Times.
But there is a silver lining if golden ticket holders do not come forward by Saturday.
Donations will go to schools in California. However, not all. It will be the California Lottery’s job to return the money to the states that contributed to the pot. Becker said about $80.5 million will be returned to other states and about $13.8 million will be distributed to California schools.
Schools have regularly profited from people winning, losing, or playing the lottery.
“It’s fair to say that over the last five to 10 years, an average of about $40 million to $50 million a year has gone unclaimed,” Becker said of the state’s lottery games.
The California Lottery will celebrate 40 years since the first lottery ticket was sold in October 2025. Meanwhile, more than $1 billion remains unclaimed, and “all of that is going into schools,” she said.
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