Winners who missed out collecting lottery millions by mere seconds
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These two lottery players overlooked the deadline ticking clock and ended up missing out on claiming their massive jackpot winnings.
But it was the closeness by which they missed the deadline that made these memorable:
Clarence Jackson - 45 minutes
Clarence Jackson didn't realize he had won $5.8 million in the Connecticut Lottery in 1995.
The hopeful winner found out just 45 minutes before the well-advertised year-long deadline, but it was 2 days before he could notify the Lottery.
Even despite his protests and a long legal battle, the prize was never presented to him.
Joel Ifergan - 7 seconds
Scraping even closer, Joel Ifergan from Quebec missed out on a CAD$27 million (US$20.1m) lottery win by just seven seconds.
He bought his Loto-Quebec Super 7 ticket moments before the 9:00 PM cutoff, but due to a delay in the ticket printing, it was issued for the following week's draw.
The winning numbers matched Ifergan's ticket, but because of the seven-second delay, it wasn't valid for that week's draw.
Despite legal battles up to the Supreme Court of Canada, Ifergan's claim was unsuccessful, as the courts upheld the time stamp on the ticket as the deciding factor.
