This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A $1.5bn Mega Millions jackpot, the second-largest lottery prize in US history, has not been claimed, four months after the winning ticket was drawn.

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The ticket was sold at the KC Mart in Simpsonville, South Carolina, sometime between 20 October and the draw at 11pm three days later.

Whoever bought it has until 5pm on 19 April to walk into the South Carolina Lottery office in Columbia and claim the jackpot.

If the ticket goes unclaimed, the $1.5bn prize will be redistributed to the 44 states along with the US Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia, which participate in Mega Millions.

One big loser could be South Carolina, which had budgeted a $61m income tax windfall from the winner but has had to remove that estimate – about 0.5% of its annual spending plan.

A lawmaker has placed a proposal in the state budget that would give up to a $50 rebate to each person who files income taxes – but only if the state gets its taxes from the lottery winner.

Another big loser would be the store owner, who won’t receive his $50,000 bonus if the ticket isn’t claimed.

Simpsonville is a rapidly growing suburb of about 22,000 people south of Greenville. The KC Mart store is away from the suburban core on a two-lane road past several recently constructed subdivisions.

Employee Jee Patel said this week that the day after the draw, state law enforcement agents were waiting in the parking lot when workers arrived at 6am.

“We didn’t even know we sold the winner yet,” he said, adding that agents took surveillance tapes away. “We haven’t seen them. I don’t know when we sold it or who we sold it to.”

Everyone entering the KC Mart on a recent cold winter day figured the winning ticket was sold to someone living or working nearby.

Christian Porchak lives a mile from the KC Mart, where he bought tickets. He felt a brief rush when he heard it sold the winner. His hopes were dashed as he checked his numbers over and over again.

“I know I checked every ticket I bought,” he said. “But there’s that nagging feeling that maybe I didn’t check every one.”

Patel said the store got a big boost in sales after selling the winning ticket and still gets people who think the luck will rub off. Signs announcing the win will stay up, Patel said.

Jackpots have gone unclaimed before. But this one dwarfs them all.

Gordon Medenica, lead director for the Mega Millions consortium, said the biggest jackpot to go unclaimed was a $68m prize in 2002. That ticket was sold in New York.

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Wendy Ahlm of the New Mexico lottery that currently oversees Powerball said two winning tickets were sold for a $103.5m jackpot in 2002 but one, sold in Indiana, was never claimed.

States differ in how long players have to claim their prizes. Medenica said he wouldn’t expect someone to come forward immediately. Winners often get legal and financial advice first. He had heard theories the winner was waiting for tax reasons. In South Carolina, as in a handful of other states, winners can remain anonymous.

“Now we’re sort of running out of reasons on why anyone would wait this long,” he said.

The biggest jackpot in US history, a $1.586bn Powerball prize, was won on 13 January 2016 by buyers in California, Tennessee and Florida. The California winners didn’t come forward for about six months, officials said.

“The larger the prize the longer it takes,” said Russ Lopez of the California Lottery. “That’s an amazing amount of money. Their life is going to change.”