On July 3, 2024, someone bought a Powerball ticket at a Walmart in Huber Heights, Ohio. It matched all five white balls and the red Powerball. It was worth $138 million.
Nobody ever came forward. On December 30 that year, Ohio’s 180-day claim window closed and the ticket expired. The cash option would have been $65.8 million. The money went into the state’s unclaimed prize fund, which helps pay for public education in Ohio.
That is the single most expensive reminder in recent lottery history that claim deadlines are real. Here is exactly how long you have, wherever you played.
Powerball and Mega Millions: it depends on your state
Both games work the same way on this point. The numbers are national, but prizes are paid by the state where you bought the ticket, under that state’s rules. You cannot claim a Texas ticket in Florida.
Claim windows range from 90 days in New Mexico, the tightest in the country, up to one full year in states like New York, Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts. The most common window is 180 days, used by Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana and many others. Maryland sits at an unusual 182 days.
There is a second deadline that catches winners off guard: the window to claim the prize and the window to choose between cash and annuity are often different. Florida gives 180 days to claim but only 60 days to pick the payout method. Illinois enforces a similar 60-day rule for the cash option. Wait too long and the choice gets made for you.
Some states also treat the jackpot differently from smaller prizes. In California, most prizes must be claimed within 180 days, but the jackpot carries a full year.
You can check any past draw on our Powerball previous results and Mega Millions previous results pages.
Baloto and Revancha (Colombia): 365 days
Colombia’s main lottery gives the most generous window of the four games we track. Every Baloto prize, regardless of size, can be claimed within 365 calendar days of the draw. After that the right expires and the money is transferred to the national health system, as set out in article 12 of Law 1393 of 2010.
A full year sounds like plenty, and that is exactly the trap. Most expired tickets are not lost to a tight deadline — they are lost because nobody looked again. Browse past draws on the Baloto previous results page.
Melate (Mexico): 60 days, the shortest window of all
This is where players lose the most prizes, by a wide margin. Article 29 of the Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública regulation is explicit: the right to collect expires 60 calendar days after the day following the draw.
Two details matter here. They are calendar days, not business days — weekends and holidays count. Plenty of sources say “60 business days” and they are simply wrong; the official regulation says calendar, and the difference is nearly three weeks you do not actually have.
And two months disappear quickly. Play on a Sunday, forget about it until the holidays, and your ticket may already be worthless. Check the Melate previous results if you have recent tickets sitting around.
The deadlines at a glance
| Game | Claim window | Clock starts |
|---|---|---|
| Powerball (US) | 90 days to 1 year, by state (180 days most common) | Draw date |
| Mega Millions (US) | 90 days to 1 year, by state (180 days most common) | Draw date |
| Baloto and Revancha (Colombia) | 365 calendar days | Draw date |
| Melate (Mexico) | 60 calendar days | The day after the draw |
How many prizes are still claimable right now
This is the part almost nobody calculates. Using the draw and prize data we maintain at LottoAlert, we can count how many prizes are still inside their claim window today. As of August 4, 2026:
| Game | Draws still claimable | Oldest live draw | Jackpot winners in the window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Powerball | 77 draws | February 7, 2026 | 6 |
| Mega Millions | 51 draws | February 6, 2026 | 3 |
| Baloto and Revancha | 156 draws | August 5, 2025 | 2 |
| Melate | 26 draws | June 5, 2026 | — |
For Powerball and Mega Millions we use 180 days as the reference, since it is the most common window. Your state may differ.
Across those 77 live Powerball draws there are more than 27 million winning tickets still inside their claim window, and 114 of them matched all five white balls without the Powerball — the $1 million tier. Mega Millions adds another 14.5 million live winning tickets, including 27 at the second-prize level.
Most of those prizes are small, and small prizes are precisely the ones that go unclaimed, because the holder never realised they won anything at all.
What happens to the money
No individual pockets it. In the United States it depends on the state: Ohio funnels unclaimed prizes into education, while other states return the money to the prize pool or to designated causes. Unclaimed multi-state jackpot funds go back to the participating states in proportion to their ticket sales.
In Colombia the money goes to the health system by law. In Mexico it funds public assistance programmes. All reasonable destinations — but it is worth saying plainly: that money was yours, and it stopped being yours because nobody checked in time.
How to make sure you never lose one
Sign the ticket the moment you buy it. An unsigned lottery ticket is a bearer instrument — it belongs to whoever is holding it. Signing the back takes five seconds and makes it yours.
Protect the original. In most jurisdictions there is no prize without the physical ticket, even if your numbers are a perfect match. Washing machines, sunlight and damp drawers have destroyed more winning tickets than anyone would guess.
Check every prize tier, not just the jackpot. The overwhelming majority of unclaimed prizes are small ones. People compare the five main numbers, see no match, and bin a ticket that actually won on three numbers — or on the bonus ball alone.
Stop relying on memory. This is the only fix that solves the problem at the root. Register your numbers for Powerball, Mega Millions, Baloto or Melate and get an automatic alert if you win. You never have to remember to check, because the checking happens for you.
The short version
In the US it depends on where you bought the ticket, and it can be as little as 90 days. Colombia gives a year. Mexico gives two months. If you have a ticket sitting in a drawer, the time to check it is now — not whenever you happen to remember.
And if you want to look at how the numbers have behaved before your next play, see our stats for Powerball, Mega Millions, Baloto and Melate.
