Check your pockets: $1M lotto ticket sold in Charlottetown still unclaimed

Someone on P.E.I. could be a millionaire and not even realize it.

The $1 million ticket from the Atlantic 6/49 draw on Dec. 22 was sold in Charlottetown, but the winner has yet to come forward, says Greg Weston, senior communications counsel with Atlantic Lottery.

"We're waiting and we're very excited to meet them when they do come in to claim their prize," he said. "It's definitely a good idea to check or recheck all your tickets, validate your ticketswith your retailers just to double check, check all the numbers on the ticket."

There is still plenty of time. The winner has one year from the draw date to claim the prize. But Weston said big prize winners usually don't wait long to cash in.

We don't see cases like this too often but when they do come up we're always interested to hear what the reason was people waited. Greg Weston, Atlantic Lottery

"We don't see cases like this too often but when they do come up we're always interested to hear what the reason was people waited."

He said some people may wait to get their affairs in order and get financial advice. Others might wait a month and check all their tickets at once, or perhaps it just slipped their mind.

"We had a case a few months ago in Nova Scotia where somebody was doing some big house renovations and they were just too busy to check their tickets and they all piled up and they went out one day to check a whole handful of them and found out one of them had won$500,000," Weston said.

Check old tickets

He's encouraging Islanders to dig out their old tickets just in case.

"If you think you might have an old ticket in a coat somewhere that you've put in the closet for the winter, maybe check that, any old purses or anything in the drawers. Look through all the places you might have put an old lottery ticket and see if you might have it and if you find one we'd love to come and see you."

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