Scratch cards, half a billion ‘lost’ prizes

Luck favors the daring, certainly excluding the tobacconist in Naples who jumped into the news because he would have tried to steal a 500 thousand euro scratch card from a customer. What is certain, however, is that luck is not on the side of the careless: from 2017 to August 2021, according to data from the Customs and Monopolies Agency processed by Adnkronos, 502,455,754 euros were not collected in prizes obtained through instant lotteries, a figure that represents approximately 1.56% of the overall total won, which amounts to 32,218,879,518 billion euros. In detail, in the period examined, the ‘black’ year for the careless was 2019. Unclaimed winnings, which, as Adm recalls, go to the Treasury and exclusively concern instant lotteries that have been terminated and not those in corso, which have no deadline for depositing the coupon, two years ago were equal to 213,251,928 million against winnings for 6,711,799,027 euros. An increase compared to 2018, when in the face of premiums paid for 6,787,871,844 euros, 161,561,426 were not claimed. Going back again, in 2017 the winnings were equal to 6,649,433,342 euros and the missed complaints were equal to 127,642,400 euros. And in 2020, the year of the pandemic? As evidenced by the data of the Agency led by Marcello Minenna, it was a year in which no lottery of those in progress was closed, so there is no annual figure linked to non-complaints. While the proceeds for the Scratch and Win were in line with those of previous years: 6.002.674.273 euros. Finally, in the first eight months of 2021, winnings have already reached the levels of previous years, reaching 6,067,101,032, while the lack of complaints for concluded lotteries amounted, in these 8 months, to just 9,699,654 euros, but judging by the previous figures, there is still time until the end of the year.