A woman from Pennsylvania is on a desperate hunt for a winning lottery ticket worth $2.5 million after she misplaced it.
Mildred Simoneriluto, 76, bought a Cash 5 lottery ticket at a grocery store in Murrysville, Pennsylvania in May 2024, as reported by ABC affiliate WTAE on Tuesday. but when she realized two weeks later she won the $2.5 million, she couldn’t find the ticket.
From there, she discovered she left the ticket in a jacket that she’d donated to Vietnam Veterans of America, a non-profit that collects donations needed for veterans around the U.S.
“I was stupefied; there are no words for it, there’s no expression,” she told the WTAE about her mistake. “How can I get it back?”
She also said that while the ticket is now missing, she initially put it in the now-donated jacket so she “wouldn’t forget.” Simoneriluto has since continued to search for the ticket at a range of local grocery stores, including the shop she got it from.
“I went to Shop n’Save about 100 times, and they said there’s nothing they can do,” she explained.
However, she’s running out of time to find her ticket. Authorities for the lottery also told her needs to hand in the physical ticket by May 8 to get her winnings. The lottery ticket has these numbers: 14, 22, 33, 35, and 38.
Simoneriluto acknowledged that the ticket could be anywhere around the U.S., given the fact that she has no idea where her jacket was donated. According to WTAE, she’s also aware of the fact that someone else could find that winning ticket and turn it in.
“What else can I do? Cry out loud and hope that something will happen,” she added. “Positive on my end.”
According to the Pennsylvania Lottery, Cash 5 with Quick Cash is the only game in the state’s lottery that offers players “a chance to win a big jackpot every day and take all the cash at once.” There are “no annuities” in this game, so lottery winners don’t have to receive their payments over time.
Meanwhile, a woman in Texas is also missing out on her lottery winnings, but for a different reason. The Austin resident, who remains anonymous, spent $20 on Texas lotto tickets for the February 17 draw using the app Jackpocket, before she won the $83.5 million jackpot. Jackpocket is a third-party vendor—known as an online lottery courier—that allows customers to buy tickets and scratch-offs remotely for a fee.
Seven days after her victory, lottery officials in Texas announced they were moving forward with an investigation into two separate major wins due to money laundering concerns. Despite this development coming after her win, lottery officials are still withholding payment.
The woman made the trip to the lottery’s headquarters in Austin last month, hoping to collect her winnings, but she was sent away empty-handed.
“I’ve gone through frustration and being sad and stressed, and now I’m just angry,” she recently told the Austin America-Statesman in the presence of her lawyer, Randy Howry. “I literally spent $20. I didn’t spend $26 million to run every single possible combination of numbers.”
