More than a full year after a winning $100 million jackpot ticket was sold at a small Sydney suburban newsagency, the mystery winner has yet to step forward to claim their life-changing prize – prompting staff at Bondi Junction Newsagency to launch a renewed public appeal to track down the elusive ticket holder.
The winning entry was purchased by an anonymous customer at the eastern Sydney store back in June 2024, and officials from lottery operator The Lott confirm no valid claim has been submitted to date. Retail assistant Grace Martino, who has worked at the shop three days a week throughout the entire 12-month search, says the team has spent the past year relentlessly urging visitors to check forgotten lottery tickets hiding in unexpected places.
The only public proof of the landmark win is a framed commemorative metal plaque hanging on the wall behind the store’s counter, documenting that the division one ticket was sold on-site. Martino explained that unlike most entries, this winning ticket was not linked to a registered NSW Lotteries membership account – a free service that would have allowed organizers to contact the winner directly via phone and email. Because of that unregistered status, no contact details exist for the buyer, leaving the team with few leads to track them down.
“There was one winner, one ticket that matched all the correct numbers. But we’ve never seen the winning ticket in person, and we’ve never met the person who bought it,” Martino told NewsWire in an interview. “All we can do is put the plaque up to prove we sold the winning entry, and keep asking people to check – check old tickets in drawers, check tote bags, check handbags, check coat pockets, anywhere that ticket could have been tossed aside and forgotten.”
Martino added that the team has long encouraged customers to sign up for the free membership program to avoid exactly this kind of situation. “If that ticket had been registered, we wouldn’t be going through all this worry right now. The free membership protects your win and makes sure you get notified if you take home a prize,” she said.
While the real winner remains missing, the store has not been short of people stepping up to claim the $100 million prize. Martino estimates that hundreds of people have visited the shop over the past 12 months to fill out claim forms asserting they are the mystery winner – but none have been able to pass the simple verification check the store uses to weed out false claims.
“The key detail we ask for is what time the ticket was purchased. The sale happened within a specific 10-minute window, and no one claiming the prize has gotten that detail right,” Martino said. “A lot of people ask if we can check our security cameras, but the footage only shows when people entered the store – it doesn’t tell us exactly when the winning transaction went through.”
Speaking to the value of the unclaimed prize, Martino shared what she would do if she was the one holding the winning ticket, saying she would donate the entire windfall to good causes. “I would send every dollar to charity. That’s such an enormous amount of money, it doesn’t need to just sit accumulating in a bank account,” she said. “My family and I don’t need $100 million, but that money could change so many lives for the better if it goes to people who need it.”
A spokeswoman for The Lott, Khat McIntyre, noted that it is extremely unusual for a top-tier division one prize to go unclaimed for this length of time. “It’s very rare for major prizes to stay unclaimed for more than a few weeks, and we are just as eager as the newsagency to connect our mystery $100 million winner with their life-changing prize,” McIntyre said. “Now, 12 months on, this incredible ticket could still be sitting anywhere completely unchecked. Since the entry wasn’t registered, we have no way to reach the winner directly, so we’re relying on the public to check their old entries.”
Lottery rules in New South Wales give unclaimed major prizes a set validity window, and any prize that goes unclaimed after that period is typically redistributed to state government community programs, according to state lottery regulations.