​How an unclaimed $44 million lottery ticket left a Florida gas station scrambling for winner

Nearly six months after a Sunoco Express gas station in Kissimmee sold a lottery ticket that ended up winning the $44 million jackpot, the gas station,less than 20 miles from Walt Disney World Resort, had been scrambling to find the winner.

The search, however, ended on Tuesday midnight as no one showed up at the Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee to claim the prize. Tickets are considered "expired" if no one steps forward to claim the prize within 180 days.

The gas station led a frenzied search to find the winner for months, but to no avail.


'WINNING TICKET SOLD HERE'
The Sunoco Express, where the coveted "Quick-Pick" ticket was bought the day before the drawing. Upon the announcement of the winning numbers, the gas station owner Jamie Barreto promptly adorned the shop with white posters, featuring bold red letters proclaiming, "WINNING TICKET SOLD HERE." As the months passed without anyone stepping forward to claim the prize, the multimillion-dollar mystery became a focal point of discussion in and around the store.

Many visited the store claiming to be the one's who bought the winning ticket, while people in the neighborhood riffled through trash cans and snatched crumpled receipts off the ground in a bid to find the ticket.

Since the prize has gone unclaimed, the money will now go back to the state with 80% of it being used to fund state education programs, while the remaining amount will go back into the prize pool for future drawings.

UNCLAIMED WINNINGS
An unclaimed jackpot is a rare occurrence. Since the launch of the Florida Lottery in 1988, there have been 30 unclaimed jackpots, ranging from $1.2 million to $66 million, according to Michele Griner, a spokesperson for the agency. She mentioned that there are approximately 166 lottery drawings each year.

In New York, only three jackpots have expired since the state started selling Mega Millions in 2002. The largest unclaimed Powerball jackpot, totaling $77 million annuity or $40.83 million in cash, was sold in Georgia in 2011.

Historian Jonathan Cohen, author of "For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America," notes that Americans annually spend over $90 billion on the lottery.