(Radio Iowa) –  The Iowa Lottery is trying to get the word out early on a couple of large prizes that are unclaimed. Iowa Lottery spokesperson, Mary Neubauer, can’t remember having two such prizes out there are once. “This has been the year of unusual unclaimed prize news here in Iowa. You know, there was that million dollar Mega Millions prize that expired back in September in Ames without being claimed,” she says. “Now there are two prizes of two million dollars each that both have been out there for a little while.” They are both Powerball jackpots from tickets purchased at different stores.

“The first was won with a ticket in Tiffin in the Powerball drawing back on October 7th. The other one was one with a ticket in Clinton in the Powerball drawing on November 25th.,” she says. “With it being so close to the end of the year, it’s possible that these winners are someone who was waiting until after January 1st to claim their prize for tax purposes. But we never know.”

The expiration date for ticket bought in Tiffen is April 4th, and the ticket from Clinton will expire on May 23rd. She says they want to get the word out early to avoid having the prize go unclaimed. “With that prize in Ames, my gosh, we held events at the store, we put out reminder after reminder, we made videos. We truly just did everything we could to remind people about that ticket, but it was never claimed,” Neubauer says. The unclaimed prize from the ticket sold in Ames was put into the Iowa Lottery’s holiday promotion.

“Here in Iowa, money from prizes that go unclaimed, expire without being claimed, goes into the lottery prize pools for future games and promotion,” Neubauer says. “So it will always go to pay prizes, just not those prizes that, unfortunately, expired.” You can check the numbers for all drawings on the Iowa Lottery’s website.