Snow day leads to million-dollar win for Oregon man

Here's a story that should remind everyone to clean their office more than once a year.

Joemel Panisa, of Logsden near the Oregon coast, spent one of Oregon's wintry days this month cleaning out his office. While cleaning, he found a Mega Millions ticket he bought on Jan. 13, 2016. He checked the numbers on the ticket and it was a winner. A $1 million winner. And it expired in eight days.

According to the Oregon Lottery, Panisa had put the ticket in an envelope in January 2016 and forgotten about it. He remembered hearing reports about an unclaimed ticket set to expire in January 2017, so he set out to claim his winnings as soon as possible.

After claiming his prize Jan. 9, Panisa became the fourth Mega Millions $1 million winner in Oregon since the game began in 2010.

The discovery of the ticket also means a win for the US Market 104 in Newport where he purchased the ticket, which will receive a 1 percent "selling bonus" -- $10,000 -- for selling the winning ticket.

Octavio Tamayo, manager of the store, told the Oregon Lottery it was a surprising and exciting development, when he learned of the win last year.

"My staff is going to be wondering who bought the ticket now," Tamayo said. "Hopefully they come back in and let us know."

Now, they might finally get some answers.

Mega Millions is drawn every Tuesday and Friday at 7:59 p.m. Panisa's ticket had five numbers though he missed the Mega Ball number.

Tickets are good for a year, which means Panisa cut it pretty close. If he hadn't claimed his money, it would have gone into the state's Economic Development Fund.

According to the Oregon Lottery, "In fiscal year 2015, more than $5.9 million in unclaimed prizes were transferred to the fund."

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

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