Sometimes, this is done purposefully and methodically, but on other occasions it’s because the bought a ticket to enter the draw didn’t necessarily check the eventual outcome. In Mzansi, the days between the SA Lotto or SA Powerball are never more than four or five. That’s not a long time to wait between draws and, more importantly, to check the numbers on a ticket purchased a few days prior. In June 2020, several South African media outlets reported that someone who entered the SA Powerball in late April – and won R135 million – still hadn’t claimed their prize. At a similar time, the National Lottery operator in Mzansi reiterated that another winner in Carletonville, Gauteng, hadn’t fetched a R9-million prize and would do well to check the past lotto numbers. “We hope that the winner will contact us soon. We encourage all players, especially those from the Carletonville region who recently visited the South supermarket to check their tickets,” said the operator at the time. Whether or not these prize winners did or do eventually come forward for what is rightfully theirs, there are lessons to be learned. If the sheer anticipation and excitement of possibly winning isn’t enough to prompt one to check the numbers, then reminders can be set via email, notes can be penned to paper, alarms can be pinged to cell phones. The importance of checking one’s lottery numbers was also epitomised in Mississauga, Canada, recently. An unclaimed Ontario lottery prize runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars (that’s millions of rands), but is sitting idle and untouched by someone who won it as long ago as January 2020. The prize will expire in January 2021. If it isn’t claimed by then, the cash will be put back into future games and bonuses. A winner in Morrinsville, New Zealand, was none the wiser about his winnings earlier this year. Unlike in Canada, though, he eventually got his millions thanks to the persistence of family members. “My daughter had been hounding me to check my ticket, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it,” the anonymous recipient of 5.5 NZ dollars (R60-ish million) said in a formal statement. “I never once thought I would be the lucky winner anyway. It’s unbelievable. I just kept thinking, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’. But they weren’t. “They asked me if I had my ticket with me, which I did. So we checked off the numbers manually using the Lotto NZ app. “All of them matched and the first thing the lady said was to write my name on the back. That’s when it hit me and I thought, ‘Oh my. This is life-changing’.” From Mississauga and Morrinsville to Carletonville and other parts of South Africa, the importance and urgency of checking one’s lottery numbers cannot be overstated. As much as you need to be in it to win it, as the adage goes, you also have to check it to get it.
