ALBUQUERQUE – A Tyrone man claimed a $515,000 jackpot from the New Mexico Lottery Tuesday, barely two weeks before the winning ticket was scheduled to expire.
David Tulloch matched the winning numbers of 3, 7, 16, 17 and 23 in the Feb. 28 Roadrunner Cash drawing. He discovered his good fortune on May 1 after checking tickets from the past two months with winning numbers posted at the lottery’s website.
“I was stunned,” Tulloch told lottery officials in Albuquerque. “I went into neutral.”
Tulloch selected his own numbers, a combination of his favorite digits as well as numbers that had not come up in recent drawings.
The winner, who plans to invest his prize, bought his lucky ticket at the Shell FoodMart located at 2045 E. US Highway 180 in Silver City. Previously, the store has sold 13 large prize-winning lottery tickets ranging between $1,000 and $125,000.
Tulloch’s ticket was scheduled to expire May 25 at 4:30 p.m. If it had expired, the $515,000 jackpot would have been returned to the lottery’s prize pool to fund future games.
Prizes for all New Mexico Lottery drawing games must be claimed within 90 calendar days of the draw date. Deadlines to claim prizes are printed on the back of all New Mexico Lottery tickets.
$1 Million Powerball Ticket Expires June 29
The New Mexico Lottery is reminding its Powerball players to check for a ticket worth $1 million from the game’s March 31 drawing. It expires on June 29 at 4:30 p.m. The ticket matches the winning white ball numbers of 5, 14, 36, 54 and 58.
The New Mexico Lottery will announce where the winning Powerball ticket was sold after the prize is claimed by the player or two weeks before the June 29 expiration date.
Legislative Lottery College Scholarships
Since 1996, the New Mexico Lottery has raised $519.4 million for education and more than 75,300 students have attended college on Legislative Lottery Scholarships. As of the Spring 2011 semester, more than 1,265 students from Grant County have received $6.5 million in Legislative Lottery Scholarships.