Unidentified Lottery Winner from Kansas

Officials from the Kansas state lottery are still waiting for word from an unidentified Kansas man who has won the Hot Lotto Sizzler lottery that is worth $5.26 million. The winning numbers on the ticket were 27-31-35-36-38 and the Hot Ball was 10.

Sally Lunsford, a spokeswoman for the Lottery, said, “Till now no one has come forward to claim the money or brought the ticket. Though I have received a call from a person claiming to be the winner’s lawyer.” She added, “if the call is legal, the person should come forward in the next one or two days.”

According to the spokeswoman, “The winner has a year to claim the sum. But in cases of large sums like this it does not take so long.” She added, “In the past we have had some unclaimed $10,000 tickets and one $200,000 ticket. We have no unclaimed jackpot tickets.”

The winner of the jackpot can choose to take the grand prize as an annual payment paid over two years — 25 payments of about $210,400 each — or take a lump sum payment. The lump sum would be $3.2 million, but this would be after subtracting 25 percent for federal taxes and 5 percent for state taxes.

The winner could claim a total of $2.24 million. The winning ticket was sold in southeast Kansas. The last time a jackpot was won in the state was in July last year when Lori Boyle won $12.9 million.