The winner has until December 11 — next Monday — to claim the prize. After that, it will be too late.
The Florida Lottery said that anyone who purchased a lottery ticket at that specific gas station was “encouraged” to check if they were the lucky winner.
And because it is such a large prize, the participant would also need to validate the ticket in person at the Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee.
While prizes up to $599 can be claimed at any retailer, those up to $250,000 require a visit to a district office, and anything exceeding that amount necessitates a trip to the Tallahassee headquarters, according to the lottery’s guidelines.
This is not the first time that a major lottery win has almost gone unclaimed.
In August 2022, a man in Michigan almost forgot about a ticket he bought and left in his car for weeks. The ticket turned out to be worth $390,000.
And last month, another man in Michigan won more than $400,000 in a lottery he didn’t know he’d entered.
Emily Irwin, who works for Wells Fargo and advises lottery winners, told Business Insider in October that many people don’t realize that winners are given little support or guidance once they win.
Winners should seek guidance on everything from whether to take the money as a lump sum or an annuity to learning how to say ‘no’ to family members seeking to cash in on the windfall, she said.
Joshua Zitser
Senior News Reporter
Joshua Zitser is a Senior News Reporter at Business Insider’s London bureau, covering breaking news, foreign affairs, and US politics.Previously, Joshua was Weekend Editor at LBC.co.uk and a freelance producer for BBC Radio 2.For his work, he has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including the Commercial Radio News Awards, Mind Media Awards, and the Axel Springer Award for Change.He has an MA (First Class Hons.) in Politics from The University of Edinburgh and an MA in Broadcast Journalism from City, University of London. Additionally, he studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Joshua has appeared on the BBC, Times Radio, Sky News, NBC, The Young Turks, iHeartRadio, and 5 News, among others.He is also a graduate of the HarperCollins Author and Design Academy, sits on the Association of Jewish Refugees’ Next Generations 3G Committee, and was a mentor for The Refugee Journalism Project.Have a tip? Email jzitser@businessinsider.com. You can also follow him on X or Instagram.ExpertiseBreaking news, the far-right, LGBTQ issues, refugees, human rights, antisemitism, Iran, and Israel.Popular articlesThe ‘fairytale’ French castles being used to shelter Ukrainian refugeesMost armies ignore autistic people. Israel is calling them up.How the trans alpaca ranchers of Custer County, Colorado, are forging a new frontierShe was killed by a look-alike she met on Instagram, police say. It thrust her family in Africa into a true-crime nightmare.Men from Afghanistan’s secret gay community say they are living through a ‘nightmare’ and fear that the Taliban will execute them at any momentIranians are putting their livers, corneas, and testicles up for sale on Telegram to pay off debts amid rocketing inflation and povertyAlireza Fazeli Monfared wanted to live as a free gay man in the West. His family in Iran beheaded him days before his dream came true, say activists
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