THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070335
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
It's a wanted poster with a price that would make Congress blush: $1.7 trillion.
Trouble is, it's a typo.
The Virginia Lottery, in a last-ditch effort to locate the winner of an unclaimed Lotto jackpot, issued fliers warning that the holder of the missing ticket has only until Monday to come forward.
The fliers have been distributed to the news media and at the 7-Eleven on Chesapeake Boulevard in Norfolk where the ticket was sold June 14. Trouble is, it lists the prize as ``$1,703,566 million.''
Just for fun, that would work out to 20 annual payments of $57,921,240,000. After taxes! At $57 billion a year, you're talking a Pentagon-sized budget.
In truth, the annual payments on the $1.7 million jackpot would be about $58,000 a year after the tax man takes his cut. That amount was reflected in the second edition of the flier after the mistake was brought to the attention of lottery officials.
``If you are the winner, or have information about the missing ticket, the Virginia Lottery Departments wants to hear from you,'' the department said on the flier. Call the Hampton regional office at 825-7800 or the Richmond headquarters at 692-7777.
The numbers on the missing ticket are 10, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 41. That suggests that whomever bought it used ages of family members - one of the more popular strategies players employ.
``That's entirely plausible,'' said Paula Otto, a lottery spokeswoman. ``They would have been 22 when they had their first child.''
Lottery winners have 180 days to claim their money from the date a prize number is drawn. If the money goes unclaimed, it is used by the State Literary Fund for teacher pensions and to make low-interest loans to local school boards.
If this jackpot in not awarded, it would be the third time one has gone unclaimed. In 1993, $1.9 million for a ticket purchased at a Virginia Beach Farm Fresh was designated to the fund. And, in June, an $11.25 million prize was never collected. That ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven on Great Neck Road in Virginia Beach.
Since 1988, the lottery has given more than $30 million to the fund.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA LOTTERY by CNB