The winner of a $14.6 million lottery jackpot in Arizona never showed up to collect the prize, officials said.
The deadline to cash in on the jackpot came and went Monday with no one coming forth to claim the winnings. As a result, the prize money will be used to fund new lottery games and charitable programs around the state, according to the Arizona Lottery.
»FROM APRIL: Unclaimed $10K lottery ticket sold in Atlanta
“It's hard to see that not get claimed,” Arizona Lottery spokeswoman Jacqueline Keidel Martinez told NBC News.
The ticket was purchased June 5 at a Circle K store in Goodyear, Ariz., near Phoenix.
Officials say they don't know who bought the ticket, which hit all six winning numbers in a game called The Pick. The purchaser had 180 days to claim the prize.
»FROM OCTOBER: Publix in Cobb sells an unclaimed winning Mega Millions ticket
The $14.6 million jackpot is a record for the largest unclaimed prize in state history, Lottery officials said. The previous state record was set in 1999, when a $4 million jackpot went unclaimed.
Perhaps the biggest lottery prize ever forfeited in the U.S. happened in August 2015, when someone won $63 million in the SuperLotto Plus jackpot in the California state lottery but never claimed it. The deadline for that prize expired in February 2016.
