Palonek reports, that there are Millions of Dollars in Unclaimed winnings across the United States

Jan. 15, 2010 - PRLog -- Winning millions in a lottery is a dream come true for everyone that purchasing a ticket in these multi-million dollars lotteries. Every lottery players wants to be a winner but the sad truth however, is that quite a few of these potential millionaires do not even come forward to claim their prize. There are people who buy lottery tickets but are unaware that they have won a future, which results in millions of dollars that become unclaimed.

“The only bright spot in all this unclaimed money is that once the time period expires on when the winning ticket can get claimed, a good portion of these millions goes towards government programs which helps everyone”, says Palonek, founder of Foundmoney.com, a company specializing in helping people find unclaimed money, since 1994.

One of the first lotteries was the New Hampshire lottery which was founded in 1964 and since then lotteries have raised over $200 billion for government programs throughout the United States. For example, in fiscal 2009, the State of Michigan’s lotteries alone, contributed $724.5 million to schools and since its inception in 1972, the lottery has contributed more than $15 billion to education in Michigan.

In Texas, its lottery has generated well over $17 billion for the state of Texas since the first ticket was sold in 1992. Prior to 1997, the proceeds were allocated to the General Revenue Fund. Since 1997, all Texas Lottery proceeds have been transferred to the Foundation School Fund to support public education in our state. The Texas Lottery has contributed more than $11 billion ($11.67 B) to the Foundation School Fund, and of that total, $1 billion was contributed in fiscal year 2009.

Then there’s the Internal Revenue Service who gets their share. In most states, lotteries must withhold 25 percent for federal withholding tax from prizes greater than a certain amount if the winner is a citizen or resident alien of the U.S. with a Social Security number.

Iowa has 2 Powerball tickets worth $200,000 that are still unclaimed. One was purchased at Eddy’s in Council Bluffs and must be claimed by May 10, 2010 and the other was purchased at Fareway Stores in Ames and must be claimed by November 22, 2010.

There is a lucky winner in Florida that has yet to claim $64,785 from the Fantasy Draw. The ticket was purchased at the 7-Eleven at 641 South Collier Blvd., Marco Island (Collier County) on July 27, 2009 and they have 180 days from that date to make a claim.

A Lottery Ticket in Benicia, California, worth nearly $800,000 from the MEGA Millions ® prize is still unclaimed.  The ticket, purchased for the September 29 draw, matched five of six numbers and is worth $796,804. The winning ticket was sold at the CVS Pharmacy located at 2100 Columbus Parkway. The winning numbers were 45, 21, 50, 25, 2 and the Mega number – the only number the ticket did not hit – was 21.

“It would appear that there are quite a few people with a winning ticket in their pocket and in a few very lucky cases, they could be millionaires and not even known it”, says Palonek.

In these tough economic times, don’t be one of the unfortunate ones that end up walking away from millions of dollars because you forgot to check their tickets for unclaimed money.

Contact

Edward Palonek at www.edwardpalonek.org
Foundmoney at www.foundmoney.com

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Each year, 1,000's of people lose track of their bank accounts, cash, stocks, bonds, refunds, royalties, safe deposit boxes and other property. Losing sight of property can happen to anyone. Foundmoney.com helps people re-unite with their unclaimed money