Blindfolded winners, hundreds of millions unclaimed

by time news

Rome, 11 March (time.news)

Play, win, but then forget to collect the prize. It happens that it is not the goddess Fortuna who is ‘blindfolded’, but whoever has been kissed by her and does not notice it. And so every year millions of euros remain in the coffers of the Monopolies. The careless belong to all game categories: scratch cards, superenalotto, lotto and lotteries. The most important drawing in Italy, that of January 6, has not awarded winning tickets for a total value of about 30 million euros, in almost twenty years (since 2002).


The most important forgetfulness dates back to 2008-2009, when 5 million were won, then put back into play the following year. In 2003, 4 million remained in the state coffers, never withdrawn by the winner; while in 2016 the uncollected victory amounted to 2 million euros. Furthermore, in 2004, 2007 and 2018, no prizes worth 1 million euros a year were collected.

Going back in time and broadening the perspective (thus including lotto, superenalotto and scratch cards), in 2018 according to Adm, unclaimed prizes reached € 228 million, equal to 1.7% of total winnings (13, 5 billion). 70% of unclaimed winnings concern scratch cards, with 161.6 million ‘forgotten’; for the lottery the unclaimed prizes and therefore ended up in the state coffers reached 41.2 million, while the superenalotto reached 25.5 million

Taking another step back, between 2010 and 2016 no prizes were collected for 353 million, between lotto and lotteries. Considering the game of the lottery alone, according to Monopoly data processed by time.news, about 49 million winnings have not been withdrawn each year, with a peak of 54.4 million in 2011, followed by 53.2 million in 2012 and 49. , 1 of 2010. Abandoned a little less in 2016 when no premiums were collected for 45.7 million, to go back to 46 million in 2013, 47.7 million in 2014 and 2015 and 49.1 in 2010.

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