I really can't hold it in any longer, so I'll tell you.
You have 3 options:
1. Someone threw it away. Yes I find a lot of winners in the trash. You could probably make a living just driving around going through the trash.
2. It was destroyed by the lottery.
3. It was never sent out.
So for all the people up in arms about the 1 or 2 top prizes left for the games closing here you go:
This is why it's illegal: To start off the lottery has to legally post the number of prizes left over X amount which is typically 30 dollars or 50 dollars in our state for each game. They lost a court case when an accounting error caused a couple of guys to spend 100k+ and the next week the number of winners online dropped from 80% down to about 10% because they had thrown out half the tickets. Lets just say that cost our state a lot of money.
Next how does the lottery dispose of half used rolls or company changing their corporate entity? They leave all the books activated in the system and go to the store and grab them all. When they get them they take them shred them and set them on fire. Are they deducted from the online tally? No they are not and there is a reason why. They don't deduct them, because they are lazy however their reasoning is that if I sold 10 tickets off the front of that roll I can't deactivate the roll from the system and remove the tickets from the count, because someone might need to cash one in. Thus their legal loophole of destroying jackpot tickets and not being able to remove the system.
Next imagine this: A story ran on here about a couple claiming a prize of 2 million when they shouldn't of been able to purchase the ticket and the state sueing them for all the money back. (I'd link the story, but I don't want to be banned again.) How did the state know and the security officials know to investigate this. Well, the story goes like this. The liquor store's license had ran out. Therefor all tickets and books activated have to stay activated, because the lottery can't know what tickets were sold to consumers before this date. At this point a lottery rep is supposed to show up to the store and pickup the terminal/tickets. The rep didn't show up for a couple of weeks and one of the girls working who was a gf of the owner started just scratching the tickets for fun as they knew they were going to be destroyed and one was 2 million. One a worker of the store in our state can't buy tickets which can be prosecuted and two the "sale" had been after the license ran out, but this is what they want you to believe. How did they know to look into this? I think they knew because they intentionally sent this roll to this store hoping and knowing the license would run out with an activated jackpot roll. The irony of this is that 2 million is not the states money it's been removed from a game that we the players played, so it belongs to we the players. There should actually be a counter suit by the players against the state to force them to put the prize back in the game or award the money to the players of the game, but of course no one looks at it this way.
What I believe happens is this: How did the lottery and why did the lottery know to want to investigate this so badly? My thoughts are as follows:
1. If they wanted to increase there revenue they are going to do what. They are going to send a roll of jackpot tickets to a place where no one buys them and only half is sold. Lets say you want a 25 dollar ticket jackpot to not be claimed you send it to an automated ticket machine at an arena that has a lotto machine in the basement. Sales are low on the machine the jackpot ticket is on the back half. A new game comes out and they are legally allowed to remove it send it back for destruction without removing it from the total or tally. I think this is also the reason you see a lot of big prizes won in the middle of "no where".
etc.. I have another example of where a state lotto jackpot was won suddenly right before 28 promotions started which i believe they have the ability to trigger just like the musl case. The coincidence of liability for me is just to great and i believe it to be completely manipulated and controlled.