| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
Lottery prize unclaimed after Visalia store sells winner
Thursday April 17, 2003VISALIA, Calif. (AP) A winning ticket for a $10 million lottery jackpot was sold at a Visalia store, but no one had claimed the prize by Thursday afternoon.
Simeon Aguirre, a California Lottery spokesman, said the winning ticket for the ``SuperLotto Plus'' game was sold at BJ's Express Mart between Sunday and Wednesday.
The winning numbers were 31-14-12-18-46, with the Meganumber 7.
A person has 180 days to claim the winning ticket.
As part of a deal to sell lottery tickets, the owner of BJ's Express Mart will receive about half of 1 percent of the jackpot, which is about $50,000.
``Out of courtesy you always tell the customer good luck. You never think you'll be the one to sell the $1 million or $10 million winning ticket,'' store manager Steve Boswell said.
He said he doesn't know what the store owners will do with the money.
The largest jackpot won in the state was $193 million on Feb. 16, 2002. Three people in different cities split the jackpot, Aguirre said.
^ :
On the Net:
California Lottery: http://www.calottery.com/
(