If you knew your ticket was worth millions, would you leave it in an old jacket pocket or pinned to your fridge, unclaimed for months? This could be the reality for a crowd of players, with 19 major prizes worth $14.8 million yet to be discovered!

Maybe it was a birthday gift or bought in-store on a whim. Regardless, we’re urging everyone to check any loose lottery tickets lying around! Your life could be changed instantly, like our recent Tasmanian winner, who scratched her way to a $25,000 Instant Scratch-Its win from a fridge-forgotten Mother’s Day gift.

Of the 19 unclaimed tickets across the country, eight are in Queensland, eight in New South Wales, two in the ACT, and one in South Australia. Currently, there are no unclaimed prizes in Victoria, Tasmania or the NT.

While we deliver life-changing news to all our registered winners weekly, unfortunately, these winning tickets were not registered to a player card or an online account. This means we have no way of identifying or contacting the mystery winners to unite them with their prize. 

We get it, life’s busy, and checking your ticket is likely on the list. In fact, over the last financial year, it took our mystery winners on average 10 days to come forward and claim their prize. One Queenslander even took a lengthy five months to come collect his $1.4 million Saturday Gold Lotto winning entry!

But did you know each state’s time to claim varies?  I’s important to check your state’s prize claim period, as they differ depending on where you purchased your ticket.

The countdown is on for two mystery division one winners, with both of their claim periods set to end within the next four months! One, a Queensland Saturday Gold Lotto ticket worth $369,059, which was purchased in November 2017 at Nextra Capalaba Park News. And the other, a South Australian X Lotto ticket worth a jaw-dropping $1 million, purchased in September last year at BP Mawson Lakes.

Our biggest unclaimed lottery win is a Set for Life prize worth $4.8 million from April 2021 with an entry purchased in Woden in the ACT!

We're eager to connect this crowd with their unclaimed prizes. So, whether you’re digging through old receipts in preparation for tax time or deep cleaning the house, keep an eye out for any unchecked lottery tickets. We’d love to unite the winners with their prize!

Unclaimed major lottery prizes across Australia (excluding WA).

*Note: this is the draw date, not the entry purchase date. Entries could have been purchased up to 10 weeks in advance of a draw. Prize values are correct as of the article’s publish date on July 15th, 2024.