Million dollar Philly lottery ticket goes unclaimed

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Someone could have been a million dollars richer today. But the clock ran out on their chance to collect their fortune Thursday afternoon.

A winning lottery ticket was sold right here in Philadelphia, but no one came forward.

Usually we bring you the stories of lottery winners. This one, however, is about someone who's now a big lottery loser.

The million dollar ticket was sold in Center City, and the winner had until 4:30 today to come and claim it. Assuming they are from Philadelphia, they could have come to the lottery office at 7th and Packer.

The ticket was set to expire one year from the date of the drawing - that's today - close of business.

But the Pennsylvania Lottery Commission tells Action News that at the end of the business day their claims department had not heard from the ticket holder.

The million dollar Powerball ticket was sold at a newsstand at 18th and Chestnut streets. Balbir Singh has owned and operated the newsstand for 14 years. He's sold some winning lottery tickets, and big ones - $25,000, $200,000.

But he says, "Not a million - first time it's a million."

He said for the last year he's been telling his regular customers to look for any lost tickets, check the numbers.

Singh explains, "Tell everybody. We have enough time, over year. Today, no more - that's it."

There is one winner in all of this - Balbir Singh. The Pennsylvania lottery told us the retailer still collects a bonus, even if the ticket holder doesn't claim the prize.

Singh gets $5,000, which was news to the newsstand owner.

"Oh, that's good news! Thank you! I didn't know I win!"

Lottery officials tell us this is very unusual. The last time it happened was in 2011 when a million dollar prize went unclaimed in western Pennsylvania.

There is one other ticket about to go unclaimed. It was a Mega Millions ticket sold at 3501 North Broad Street. It expires on Friday, September 26th.