A Mystery Winner Claimed $24 Million Just Two Days Before the Deadline. Officials Think They Waited on Purpose

A single $24 million New York Lotto ticket sold on 5/25/2016 at Renu Corp Grocery & Tobacco in Tribeca sat unclaimed for nearly a year, even as the deadline to cash it in crept closer. The New York Lottery took the unusual step of pushing last-minute reminders to “Check your pockets. Check your glove box. Look under the couch cushions.” Then, on 5/23/2017, a winner walked into the Beaver Street Customer Service Center in Lower Manhattan with just two days to spare, saying the news coverage finally prompted a search through old tickets at home. “It doesn’t happen often that we put out a press release at the last minute and a winner comes forward,” lottery director Gweneth Dean told CBS New York.

A $24 million ticket nearly lost to time

If you follow tech and money long enough, you start to notice how often value hides in plain sight. In this case, it was a piece of paper, not a private key. A single New York Lotto jackpot ticket worth $24 million sat unclaimed for nearly a year after it was sold on May 25, 2016, at Renu Corp Grocery & Tobacco in Tribeca, Manhattan.

The clock mattered because New York Lottery prizes have a hard rule: claim within 1 year of the drawing. That meant the deadline was the end of the day on May 25, 2017, a cutoff that can turn a windfall into a missed opportunity with no appeals, no customer support chat, no password reset.

A public nudge, then a real person shows up

As the deadline approached, the New York Lottery went public with a search for the missing winner, urging people to double-check what they had tucked away. Gweneth Dean told players to, “Check your pockets. Check your glove box. Look under the couch cushions.” The appeal was widely repeated as the $24 million ticket neared expiration.

Then, on May 23, 2017, the mystery winner arrived at the New York Lottery’s Beaver Street Customer Service Center in Lower Manhattan and claimed the prize, just 2 days before it would have expired. Dean, the Director of the New York State Gaming Commission’s Division of the Lottery, later said, “It doesn’t happen often that we put out a press release at the last minute and a winner comes forward.”

The moment of discovery: a pile of old tickets

The winner said the news coverage prompted the search at home: a check through a pile of old lottery tickets that had been sitting around, waiting. The winning numbers from that May 25, 2016 drawing were 05-12-13-22-25-35, with bonus number 51, a detail that turns a vague hunch into a verifiable match.

Dean’s official reaction kept the focus on timing and relief. “We are thrilled that this lucky winner was able to locate this life-changing ticket,” she said, adding, “We look forward to introducing this multimillionaire who came forward in the nick of time,” per the New York Lottery release.

A tiny storefront’s “big one,” and a name revealed later

Back at 158 Church Street, the win landed differently: proof that a modest corner shop can be the starting point for a headline-sized payout. The store owner told CBS2 reporter Vanessa Murdock, “First time I sell a big one.”

Months later, an October 2017 CNN report identified the winner as a retired security officer surnamed Smith, who found the ticket in an old shirt in his closet after seeing a news story about the search, 2 days before the deadline.