There are 9 Irish lotto players that never came forth to collect their huge wins amounting to
more than € 1 million. Whether it was not realising that they had won or had lost their tickets,
or it was something else responsible for the mishap, it is pretty phenomenal that 9 people
missed out on life transforming sums!
Biggest unclaimed lottery win in Ireland
The biggest unclaimed lottery win in Ireland continues to be the sum of close to € 3 million
won in 2014. In fact, it is counted amongst some of the enormous unclaimed lottery jackpots
overall. The winner of this lottery missed out on precisely €2,913,455 in a draw that
happened on November 29 that year, in Mayo. Resultantly, it is Tesco Silver Bridge on
Knock Road in Claremorris that holds the record of selling the biggest unclaimed Irish
winning lottery ticket.
Second biggest unclaimed lottery win in Ireland
The second biggest unclaimed lottery win in Ireland goes back to the year 2002. This lottery
ticket was sold through a shop named Crystal Street in Coolock in Dublin. The winning ticket
had £3,445,223.50 to its name, which when converted into euros makes it a close second
after the € 3 million win of 2014.
It’s the punters from Dublin which are the biggest offenders when it comes to not claiming
the lottery prizes. A total of 4 big lottery wins went unclaimed in the city within a time span of
2 years. In total, there are 5 unclaimed winning lottery tickets from Dublin, worth over € 1
million. Cork sold a couple and Mayo and Kilkenny sold one unclaimed winning tickets each.
Third biggest unclaimed lottery win in Ireland
This one happened in November 2003 in Cork, through a shop known as Wilton SS on
Glasheen Road. The winning ticket was worth €1,350,000, but no one came forward to
collect the winning amount in the prescribed 90 days’ time period after the announcement.
The first ever shop to sell € 1 million+ unclaimed winning ticket in Ireland was Murphys,
situated on Lr. Baggot Street in Dublin 2.
More on the unclaimed wins
A big campaign was run by the Irish National Lottery some time ago to create awareness
regarding unclaimed prizes amongst the people. Despite that initiative, there was a € 1
million raffle prize in Topaz Service Station, Lower Road Tivoli, which no one came forth to
claim. Talking to the Irish Mirror, Fran Whearty, the National Lottery spokesman said that
they have been constantly reminding people to double check their lottery tickets, in order to
be absolutely sure that they don’t have the winning one with them.
He further spoke about the month-long media campaign involving emailing people on a daily
basis to check their tickets. Oftentimes people hear about not winning the jackpot and give
up hope. They never go back and check their tickets to confirm if they have won anything
else or not.