Santa going Grinch over $200K lottery ticket

Haste

prevents

waste sometimes.

Especially with expiring lottery tickets.

In one local case, Santa's threatening to become the Grinch.

Last Dec. 24 - Christmas Eve - a Powerball ticket purchased in Mount Holly won $200,000 by matching the first five numbers drawn: 14, 16, 30, 51 and 52. It failed to match only the Powerball of 19.

No one has yet filed a claim, and time's up one year after drawings in New Jersey, as it is in most states, including Pennsylvania.

The ticket was bought at Milleries Food Market on Rancocas Road in the Burlington County town.

Unclaimed Montgomery County ticket worth $330,000. This one's also heading toward worthlessness, but the holder has more time.

The Cash 5 ticket was bought Jan. 27, 2012, at Coles Tobacco in Pottstown, Montgomery County.

It matched all the numbers: 14, 23, 25, 33 and 43.

Bucks ticket wins $50 million. No rush this time, since the jackpot was just hit Wednesday night. But considering its size, the news bears repeating. The ticket matched all the numbers drawn - 13, 17, 19, 27 and 38, with a Powerball of 12 - and was purchased at Levittown News & Tobacco, 411 S. Oxford Valley Road, in Fairless Hills. The cash value: $33.1 million.

It was the second Powerball jackpot hit in the area - or the state - this year. In April, a group of 48 SEPTA workers bought a ticket at the Gallery Mall in Philadelphia that paid $107.5 million in cash. The annuity was worth $172.7 million.

For more information, go to www.philly.com/philly/news/lottery, www.palottery.com, or www.njlottery.net.