Unclaimed Ticket a Jackpot for Schools

One person’s despair is 6 million others’ delight.

That is the number of California schoolchildren who theoretically will share in a $25-million Los Angeles lottery jackpot that went unclaimed Friday.

The winning ticket from the Jan. 8 Lotto drawing automatically expired at 12:01 a.m. Friday, making it the largest unclaimed jackpot in California history.

The ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven convenience market at 11656 Wilshire Blvd.

The deadline left thousands of West Los Angeles lottery players kicking themselves at the thought that they might have won, had they not thrown away or lost their Jan. 8 tickets.

But it left school officials in Sacramento clicking their heels with joy. All unclaimed jackpots by law are diverted to public education.

“Hooray!” said Jan Sterling, director of the state Department of Education’s school fiscal services division. “Public schools can use every dollar they can get.”

Twenty-five million dollars would buy 833,300 new textbooks or pay the salaries of 6,000 new teachers, said Doug Stone, a spokesman for the Department of Education.

“It’s great news,” Stone said of the unclaimed jackpot.

Lottery officials said the cash will be released for school use in October or November.

Public education already receives 34 cents of each $1 spent on lottery tickets. The state lottery has raised $11 billion for schools since its start in 1985, officials said.

Lottery spokeswoman Norma Minas said there is still an extraordinarily slim chance that the holder of the Jan. 8 ticket mailed it Thursday to the Sacramento lottery office.

“It’s a very remote chance. But we’ll wait a few days to see if anything comes in the mail. We’ll look at the postmark,” Minas said late Friday.

Lottery organizers have had multimillion-dollar claims filed by certified mail in the past by winners seeking to avoid publicity. But nobody has ever waited later than six days before the ticket expiration date to claim a jackpot, Minas said.

The unclaimed prize left devoted lottery players at the West Los Angeles 7-Eleven shaking their heads in disbelief. That’s where the Jan. 8 winning numbers 49-14-25-32-46-34 were punched out on store operator Ralph Berg’s Lotto machine.

“I always check my numbers,” said customer Rosi Flores, a Los Angeles janitorial worker. “The most I’ve won is $1. But I always check.”