A $24 million New York Lotto ticket bought on May 25, 2016, at Renu Corp Grocery and Tobacco in Tribeca sat unclaimed for nearly a year until the winner showed up on May 23, 2017, just two days before the May 25 deadline. The winner said news coverage of the expiring prize prompted them to check old tickets at home, a response lottery director Gweneth Dean said “doesn’t happen often” after a last-minute alert.
Key Takeaways
New York Lottery paid $24 million after Smith claimed the ticket on May 23, 2017.New York Lottery’s last-minute publicity helped save a $24 million jackpot from expiring.Smith had just 2 days left before the New York Lotto ticket expired on May 25, 2017.A single $24 million New York Lotto ticket sold on 5/25/2016 at Renu Corp Grocery & Tobacco in Tribeca sat unclaimed for nearly a year, even as the deadline to cash it in crept closer. The New York Lottery took the unusual step of pushing last-minute reminders to “Check your pockets. Check your glove box. Look under the couch cushions.” Then, on 5/23/2017, a winner walked into the Beaver Street Customer Service Center in Lower Manhattan with just two days to spare, saying the news coverage finally prompted a search through old tickets at home. “It doesn’t happen often that we put out a press release at the last minute and a winner comes forward,” lottery director Gweneth Dean told CBS New York.
A $24 million ticket nearly lost to timeIf you follow tech and money long enough, you start to notice how often value hides in plain sight. In this case, it was a piece of paper, not a private key. A single New York Lotto jackpot ticket worth $24 million sat unclaimed for nearly a year after it was sold on May 25, 2016, at Renu Corp Grocery & Tobacco in Tribeca, Manhattan.
The clock mattered because New York Lottery prizes have a hard rule: claim within 1 year of the drawing. That meant the deadline was the end of the day on May 25, 2017, a cutoff that can turn a windfall into a missed opportunity with no appeals, no customer support chat, no password reset.
A public nudge, then a real person shows upThen, on May 23, 2017, the mystery winner arrived at the New York Lottery’s Beaver Street Customer Service Center in Lower Manhattan and claimed the prize, just 2 days before it would have expired. Dean, the Director of the New York State Gaming Commission’s Division of the Lottery, later said, “It doesn’t happen often that we put out a press release at the last minute and a winner comes forward.”
The moment of discovery: a pile of old tickets A tiny storefront’s “big one,” and a name revealed laterBack at 158 Church Street, the win landed differently: proof that a modest corner shop can be the starting point for a headline-sized payout. The store owner told CBS2 reporter Vanessa Murdock, “First time I sell a big one.”
