Millions Lost: The Lottery Tickets Nobody Ever Claimed
“A $70 million ticket in Ontario. A $64 million prize in New Brunswick. Every year, tens of millions of dollars in lottery winnings expire unclaimed across Canada.”
In April 2023, someone in Gloucester County, New Brunswick, purchased a lottery ticket worth $64 million. One year later, that ticket was about to expire — and nobody had come forward. Marlene Legacy, who owns the Last Stop Convenience Store outside Bathurst where the ticket may have been sold, told CBC Radio: 'At the beginning, it was crazy. It was the talk almost every day.' If unclaimed, it would become the largest prize to ever expire in Atlantic Canada.
This isn't an anomaly. According to Tony Bitonti, OLG's director of media relations, roughly $10 million in prizes go unclaimed every year in Ontario alone. Loto-Québec reports similar figures. Atlantic Lottery says approximately one percent of all prizes go unclaimed annually. In 2023, a $70 million Lotto Max ticket sold in Scarborough, Ontario, was officially declared unclaimed — the largest single prize to ever expire in the province. In British Columbia, the biggest unclaimed prize was a $15 million Lotto Max ticket that expired on August 13, 2022.
Why does this happen? Bitonti explains that most unclaimed prizes start small: 'If they see that they just won a free play or a $2 or $5 prize, they'll put off claiming that money, and then that ticket goes missing.' Seasonal jackets are a notorious culprit — people buy a ticket in winter, stuff it in a coat pocket, and don't find it until the following fall when the claim window has closed.
But even multimillion-dollar jackpots slip through the cracks. In one remarkable 2012 case, a $50 million Lotto Max prize went unclaimed for eight months. OLG investigators knew the winning ticket was sold at a specific Shoppers Drug Mart in Cambridge, Ontario, and had identified the exact time of purchase. Using security camera footage, they saw the buyer had paid with a credit card and scanned a Shoppers Optimum loyalty card. This allowed them to track down the winner — Kathryn Jones — who became the first person identified through OLG's formal claims investigation process and was ultimately paid.
In late 2025, an Alberta couple nearly lost their Lotto 6/49 win to the same pattern. Judy and Dennis Korop of Ashmont had a routine for checking tickets, but Dennis had a health scare that disrupted everything. Their ticket from the January 18, 2025 draw sat in his pocket for months. Eventually, Judy handed a stack of unchecked tickets to a store cashier — and the terminal went off. Every lottery corporation in Canada now actively uses social media campaigns and press releases to alert potential winners. But Bitonti's advice couldn't be simpler: 'Check your tickets. Always check your tickets.'