Somebody out there is $100,000 richer and they don’t even know it.
Whoever purchased ticket number 1-3-0-1-4-3 in the Michigan Lottery’s Millionaire Raffle at Uncle Boomba’s Marathon gas station (southwest corner of M-24 and Drahner in Oxford) has a $100,000 prize waiting for them.
‘No one has claimed it yet,? said Jim Saigh, station manager at Uncle Boomba’s. ‘We were surprised.?
‘I have a feeling the person that won doesn’t even know or they lost the ticket,? he said.
Saigh does not know the exact date the winning ticket was purchased and the Michigan Lottery won’t release that information as a matter of policy.
A total of 600,000 tickets were sold for the Millionaire Raffle between Nov. 19 and Dec. 23, 2007.
On Jan. 2, a total of 2,018 tickets were randomly selected to receive various cash prizes. Tickets were sold for $20 each and printed in numerical order as they were issued.
‘It goes in sequence,? Saigh explained. ‘They start at number one and they go to 600,000.?
So, the winning ticket was the 130,143rd one sold in the raffle.
Saigh said no one at Uncle Boomba’s has a clue as to who bought the golden ticket.
‘We don’t know if it was some one traveling through the area . . . if it was during hunting season,? he said. ‘It could have been anyone.?
Saigh believes the winner was probably a hunter passing through.
‘Somebody was probably hunting, stopped in to grab something to drink or eat, picked up a ticket and doesn’t even realize it,? he said.
An outdoor sign at the gas station reminds everyone to ‘Check your pockets for the $100,000 winner.?
The ticket sold at Uncle Boomba’s is one of only two unclaimed $100,000 prizes. The Millionaire Raffle featured six grand prizes of $1 million each, 12 prizes of $100,000 each and 2,000 prizes of $500 each.
Whoever holds the winning $100,000 ticket from Uncle Boomba’s has until Jan. 2, 2009 to claim their prize otherwise the money reverts back to the state School Aid Fund.
Because the prize is more than $50,000, the winner must call the Lottery’s Public Relations Division at (517) 373-1237 to pre-validate the ticket and schedule an appointment to claim their prize in person at Lottery headquarters, 101 E. Hillsdale in Lansing. Photo identification and a Social Security card must be presented in order to claim the prize.
‘We are unable to cash it here at this level,? Saigh said.
The last big winning ticket sold at Uncle Boomba’s was in June 1997 when a 10-member lottery club won $150,000 by matching the first five Big Game numbers on an easy pick.