Looks like the ticket was turned in, but the winners chose to remain anonymous.

A Bismarck man and woman stepped up to the counter at the North
Dakota Lottery office on Friday to claim their Powerball prize.
Finally. It had been nearly a month since they’d purchased the ticket
at a local gas station.After taxes, each of them stepped back
into the elevator with a check worth $138,920. It would have been
interesting to watch the security footage of that ride back down to
earth.Unfortunately, that might be the only way to find out who
the lucky winners are. They chose to collect their prize anonymously.
So there’s no answer to who won the $400K, but Friday’s redemption at
least ended four weeks of speculation as to what happened to the ticket.”One of their first comments was ‘This might clear up a few questions,'” lottery spokeswoman Donna Thronson said.The
two Powerball players bought the winning ticket Jan. 26 at Main Tesoro,
with the agreement that they’d split any proceeds. But they forgot to
check the ticket after that day’s drawing – and the next drawing and
the one after that.It wasn’t until they read a story about the unclaimed ticket in the Tribune that they fished it out and reviewed the numbers.”Sometimes
we don’t check our tickets for weeks,” one of them said, according to
Thronson. “We couldn’t believe we won. I kept checking the ticket again
and again to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.”The pair won the largest amount given out in Bismarck since the state got into the lottery game in 2004.In
those four years, 14 North Dakota players have won $100,000 or more
playing Powerball. The largest prize won in this state was $1 million,
claimed by Kevin Green, who drew the ticket in Williston in March 2006.
The second-biggest amount was $600,000, claimed by an anonymous group
of people in Lisbon in June 2006.

Can’t say I blame them. I bet after any substantial windfall the “friends” and “relatives” come out of the woodwork left and right!

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