$1M lottery prize sold in Spokane County set to expire tomorrow

If you bought a lottery ticket in Spokane County in November, you might want to give it another look.

Washington’s Lottery says a $1,000,000 Powerball prize from a ticket bought in Airway Heights expires tomorrow, Saturday May 6.

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To see a prize go unclaimed after a drawing isn’t something that’s seen all that often.

“It is uncommon,” Kristi Weeks with the Washington State Lottery Commission told KIRO Newsradio.

“We always encourage people when they win a large jackpot to check with a financial planner, check with a lawyer — plan ahead for what you’re going to do with this kind of money,” Weeks continued. “So it may be they’re engaging in that kind of pre-planning before they actually present the winning ticket.”

Another $10,000 Match 4 prize bought in Puyallyp also expires in a few weeks.

You can check the previous winning numbers on the Washington Lottery website, and if you still have your ticket, you can contact the lottery to claim your prize.

The prize is funded entirely from ticket revenue. State law requires at least 45% of sales to go toward that jackpot, but typically the Lottery Commission will devote between 60 and 65%.

If it remains unclaimed after then, most of the money will go back to the lotto fund, but one-third of it will go to public works projects such as education funds, public infrastructure, a joint center for aerospace technology innovation, or other predetermined state funds.

In the meantime, now might be a good time to buy a lottery ticket. The jackpot is up to $1.2 million.

The next drawing is Saturday.