School boosted by massive unclaimed Keno jackpot

The School Aid Fund of Michigan are better off to the tune of a cool $250,000 following the expiration of a lottery deadline with no one coming forward to claim the top prize from the Michigan State Lottery Department.

One of the lottery spokespeople, Abbey Brewer, declared as the 4pm deadline passed that no one had come forward to claim the jackpot and that the prize fund would therefore be added to the school aid fund. The ticket was bought on the fourth of January 2010 from a supermarket in Grand River, Redford Township one year ago, called Spartan Foods.

The shop has been buzzing all week the store owner Ronald Sesi said. However this wasn't only due to the unclaimed keno ticket, many people knew about it but most were more exciting by the enormous $330m Mega Millions lottery draw and they were queueing out of the door in the hope of purchasing the winning ticket from the lucky store.

In fact the Mega millions prize pool grew to an incredible $380m with the draw, which covers tickets sold in 42 states, taking place on Tuesday evening. The prize was eventually shared between two winning tickets which were not bought in Michigan, however the unclaimed $250,000 remained at the forefront of the minds of many of the regular customers. Local Dixie Burton lamented "Why couldn't it have been ?", Linda Edmons, another local who bought five tickets worth one dollar each on Monday remarked "I always buy Keno tickets. Somebody else got lucky but next time it could be me".

However the famously unclaimed Keno winning ticket does have a self-proclaimed owner, states Anthony Sesi who is the nephew of the lucky store's owner. He has seen the customer's Keno stub with the correct numbers all filled in though she no longer has the ticket, claiming that the store owners stole it!

Anthony, his uncle, and other employees of Spartan Foods sell approximately one hundred dollars worth of Keno tickets every single day. Obviously, says Anthony, "at the time she bought the ticket nobody knew that it was the winner. So why would I steal it?". While this unfortunate customer has made regular contact with the store about her missing winning keno lottery ticket, the lottery board have not heard from her, the lottery spokesperson Brewer said "nobody has contacted us about it".

She added that unclaimed lottery jackpots are not particularly uncommon. During the 2009 to 2010 fiscal year the school gained over $27m from winners who had never stepped forward to claim their prizes within the one year limit. It is not known whether any of the recent Keno winners are familiar with out Keno strategy guide but it certainly won't harm their prospects in the future to have a look!

Meanwhile Jim McCullar, who split the massive Mega Millions lottery win, revealed that this was the third time in life that he'd been lucky - the first being marrying his wife and the second.. what else, winning $16,500 at Keno!