A winning punter has missed out on a record $118 million jackpot after failing to claim on a Triple Trio bet placed last year.
Under Jockey Club rules the $30 winning ticket on the correct Triple Trio combination, which paid $38,577,504 for every $10 ticket, at the Happy Valley meeting on November 6 became void at the weekend after the 60-day claim period expired. The money will now go to charity.
'If someone has paid for their ticket with cash over the counter, as this one did, we have no way of knowing who had the winning bet unless they come to collect it,' said Jockey Club executive director of betting Henry Chan.
'Every day, every race meeting, we have unclaimed dividends, and under the rules those dividends are transferred after 60 days to the account which is paid to charitable organisations. So, although this is bad luck for one winner, it means there will be a lot of winners through the charities,' said Mr Chan.
Possible explanations for the failure to claim are that the holder of the winning ticket lost it or that the bet was marked by accident and the winner was not aware of having placed it.
But the punter was not just a small-time investor. With $30 on each of 1,350 combinations of runners, the winning ticket cost $40,500.