Valuable winning lottery ticket could be in your coat pocket

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Thinking of lining up at the mini-mart for a shot at a $1.35 billion Mega Millions jackpot?

Maybe you should first dig into your coat pockets or your car’s glove box to make sure you don’t already have a winning ticket from an earlier drawing.

As players buy Mega Millions tickets ahead of Friday night’s drawing, lottery officials throughout the country say that every year players miss out on millions of dollars in prizes they either don’t realize they have won or decline to cash in, figuring the trouble isn't worth a small payoff. People nearly always show up for the biggest prizes, but million-dollar payoffs have been waiting for months to be claimed in Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington state.

And more than two months after someone in California won a record $2.04 billion Powerball ticket, no winner has been named, though that person still has until November to come forward.

“Millions of dollars in California Lottery prize money go unclaimed each year — something I don’t think a lot of people realize,” said Carolyn Becker, a deputy director of the California Lottery. “I suspect most of those prizes are for people who never knew they’d won. Maybe they forgot to check their ticket, or misplaced it, and never saw the outcome of the draw.”

Sometimes the delay in cashing in a big winning ticket is strategic, as players opt to delay coming forward until the next year for tax reasons, said Jake Harris, the player relations manager for the Michigan Lottery.

Lottery officials also advise winners of the giant jackpots like the huge payout in California last November to work with financial planners and other advisers before cashing in their winning ticket — as long as they sign their winning ticket and keep it secure.

But there are...