Forgotten ticket turns up in a dark place after whirlwind search through house

By Kate Northrop

New Jersey Lottery officials — and a very lucky lottery winner — are sighing a breath of relief after a player finally stepped forward to claim a $5.9 million Pick 6 jackpot a week before it was due to expire.

With only eight days left before the deadline, the $5.9 million Pick 6 jackpot winner surprised New Jersey Lottery officials with the explanation as to why it took so long to claim the prize.

Around late April, the Lottery put out a call to players to check their tickets and look in their hiding spots for a missing slip of paper worth $5.9 million. One anonymous player thankfully saw the news, and it prompted him to talk to the employees who worked at the store he usually purchased his lottery tickets from — the same retailer that sold the winning ticket.

The store employees at Eisenhower Exxon on Eaglerock Avenue in Roseland didn't know who the winner was, but they knew that only a few of their regular lottery customers played Pick 6 as their preferred game. They told him to "double-check everything," the player recalled to Lottery officials.

The thought that he could very well be one of those few Pick 6-loving players prompted him to head back home and tear through his house, searching every spot he might have stored a ticket.

With $5.9 million potentially at stake, he rifled through every nook and cranny before delving into the closet and fishing through every single pants pocket for a missing piece of paper.

In one pair of pants, he pulled out a crumpled-up Pick 6 ticket from nearly a year ago.

He immediately confirmed that it was the jackpot-winning ticket from last May and rushed over to Lottery offices in the middle of the day on May 14 — just eight days away from the ticket expiring.

It would have been a very painful discovery had he pulled that ticket from his pants pocket just over a week later.

"As always, New Jersey Lottery reminds players to check their tickets," the Lottery said in a press release. "While jackpot prizes going unclaimed is rare, many small tickets sit unclaimed in drawers and pockets for months or years when they could be redeemed for cash!"

The ticket matched all six winning numbers in the May 22, 2025 drawing: 20, 21, 30, 31, 42, and 44, beating the 1 in 9.3 million odds of winning the jackpot.

Had the winner not come forward to claim his prize, the money would have returned to the state as revenue, with a small portion going into Lottery reserves to fund future special prizes and promotions.

The Pick 6 jackpot currently stands at $2.6 million for the next drawing on Thursday, May 21. Drawings take place Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 10:57 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2. A courier service offers online purchases for NJ Lottery games with a service fee.

All Pick 6 winning numbers, prizes, and odds can be found on Lottery Post's New Jersey Lottery Results page right after each drawing.