Today (Monday) marks the halfway point between the purchase of a valuable lottery ticket in eastern Iowa and it’s expiration date. Iowa Lottery spokesperson Mary Neubauer says the $2 million winning Powerball ticket was purchased at a convenience store in Cedar Rapids for the drawing on July 16. After six months, no one has come forward with the ticke “It’s not very often that a prize of this size goes unclaimed for this long,” Neubauer says.

It’s possible the ticket was lost or even thrown away, but Neubauer says it’s not uncommon for frequent players of lottery games to leave the tickets unchecked for long periods of time. “People have said ‘oh yeah, I let them pile up on my dresser’ or one woman who contacted us said she kept her lottery tickets in a cookie jar and she would check the tickets after she got a lot of them in her cookie jar,” Neubauer said.

The $2 million winning ticket will expire at the close of business on July 17, if it isn’t claimed by then. “There are still six months for this particular ticket to go, but with every day that passes, it becomes a little more likely that maybe that ticket isn’t out there anymore,” Neubauer said. “So, we’re just trying to do all we can to get the word out.”

The ticket was purchased at the Hawkeye Convenience Store, 2330 Wiley Blvd. SW in Cedar Rapids. The ticket initially matched the first five numbers but missed the Powerball in the July 16 drawing to win a $1 million prize, but the person who bought the ticket also added the Power Play option to the purchase, which multiplied the prize to $2 million. The winning numbers in the July 16 Powerball drawing were: 11-17-40-50-62 and Powerball 26. The Power Play number was 2.

(Radio Iowa)