Winning Powerball ticket with $50,000 prize unclaimed in Virginia and will soon expire

A lucky Lottery player in Virginia has until Tuesday, May 28, 2024 to claim a ticket worth $50,000 before the prize expires and the ticket becomes worthless.

Somewhere in Virginia there is a Powerball ticket winner at risk of losing their unclaimed $50,000 prize.

The lucky ticket was sold at the Wawa at 2390 Plank Road in Fredericksburg, Va., according to FOX 5 DC. 

The winning numbers were drawn on November 27, 2023, but so far no one has come forward to claim the prize money. Under state law, a winning lottery ticket in Virginia will expire 180 days after the drawing.

May 25, a Saturday, marks 180 days since the drawing. But since Lottery offices are closed on weekends, the deadline for the ticket holder will be extended to Tuesday, May 28, 2024. The $50,000 ticket will lose all its value once the deadline expires at 5:00 p.m.

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The winning numbers for that drawing were 2-21-38-61-66, and the Powerball number was 12. A $50,000 prize means the ticket matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball number.

Any unclaimed Lottery prizes in Virginia are transferred to the state's Literary Fund, which provides low-interest loans to communities for public school construction, renovations, technology upgrades and funds teacher retirement pay.

The holder of the unclaimed winning ticket is encouraged to contact the Virginia Lottery immediately. There are eight Lottery customer service centers across Virginia where the ticket can be redeemed, FOX 5 reported.

Earlier this month, a Virginia man won the $500,000 prize on a scratch-off ticket he bought while shopping for some chicken.

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Russell Gomes, of South Boston, Virginia, went to the Food Lion grocery store recently to buy chicken, he told the Virginia Lottery's website. 

South Boston is located in southern Virginia, about 20 miles north of the North Carolina border. 

While he was shopping, he decided to buy a scratch-off ticket — specifically, the Virginia Lottery's "Magnificent 7s" scratcher. When he scratched off the ticket in the store's parking lot, he got the surprise of a lifetime. 

"I really didn’t believe it!" he told Lottery officials when he redeemed his winning ticket on May 3. "It feels great!

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Gomes said he planned to use the prize winnings to pay off a vacation that he had already scheduled.

The Virginia Lottery was established in 1987, after Virginians voted in favor of creating a state-operated lottery. The first tickets were sold the following year, said the Virginia Lottery's website.

Since 1999, the Virginia Lottery's profits have supported K-12 public education in the commonwealth, said its website. In 2023, this amounted to more than $867 million that went to public education in the state. 

This was about 10% of the commonwealth's budget for K-12 schools, said the Virginia Lottery's website. These funds are distributed throughout Virginia's counties. 

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During the 2023 fiscal year, the Virginia Lottery had sales of $4.6 billion. 

Of those sales, more than $3.5 billion was distributed to lottery winners and the retailers who sold the winning tickets, said the lottery's website.   

Fox Business' Christine Rousselle contributed to this report.