It's still not too late for winner of unclaimed £1m

Somebody, somewhere out there is £1 million poorer this morning than they should be.

At 5.30 p.m. yesterday the 90-day deadline passed for the holder of a jackpot-winning Lotto ticket to collect his or her winnings. The jackpot for January 28th was £1 million and it is now the biggest uncollected Lotto prize in the draw's 12-year history.

The winning ticket, a £1.50 Quick Pick, was purchased in Murphy's newsagency on Baggot Street, Dublin, on January 28th at 11.12 a.m. Mr Edward Laird, owner of Murphy's, said yesterday he felt "very sorry for whoever it was".

"When I heard about the deadline coming, last night, my wife suggested that I might have bought the ticket, so we were searching all over the house for any old Lotto tickets. But it wasn't us," he said.

"The shop is always very busy at that time on a Friday morning - between 10.30 and 11.30 - because of the offices around it. I think it's when they all get their breaks, so the Lotto machine would have been going non-stop. Oh, I've no idea who it was, probably someone who just ran in, bought the ticket and forgot about it."

The National Lottery spokeswoman, Ms Paula McEvoy, said it showed how important it was to check your numbers within the 90-day limit.

"It is relatively unusual that this would happen. In the 12 years of the Lotto there have been only six jackpots that have not been collected. But there is not only the jackpot, there are plenty of other prizes which go unclaimed every year." There have been some at the other end of the luck spectrum, such as the Dublin accountant who last year went to collect his two-month-old match 4 prize of £45 to find that his Multi-draw ticket (which allows you to buy tickets in advance of a number of draws) had won the preceding week's jackpot. He walked out of the Lotto offices last September with a cheque for £2,193,949.

Meanwhile, Mr Laird said he may have a bit of a party, despite his commiserations for somebody out there. For selling a jackpot-winning ticket he earns £7,500. It's the shop's second jackpot ticket. "The chap who owned the shop before me sold a ticket which won a million, too. I'm told it was a man from the Department of Agriculture who was due for retirement, but went straight back to work and gave in his notice."

The next-biggest unclaimed jackpot was £739,388, the ticket for which was sold on January 16th, 1999, in Sweets & Things, Quinnsworth Shopping Arcade, Sligo.

Ms McEvoy said the door would not be "completely closed" if someone found they had the winning ticket over the bank holiday weekend. For the record, the winning numbers were 4, 24, 35, 37, 39 and 42.