Those blessed by fortune should not have to rely on fate

AFTER WAITING until the last minute, the representative of the Dongguan City Welfare Center in South China's Guangdong province announced that the winner of a lottery jackpot of 25.65 million yuan ($4 million) hadn't claimed it by the end of the pay-out period on Monday. This is the largest amount not claimed in a single lottery in the history of China's welfare lotteries. The Beijing News said:

It is worth noting that the winner not claiming the lottery prize is not a unique phenomenon. For example, in 2011, the accumulated abandoned prize money was 67.61 million yuan.

While the main responsibility for the unclaimed lottery prizes lies with the lottery winners themselves, lottery organizers also need to reflect on three questions: First, whether or not the system for announcing the winners works well? To find the winner, Dongguan Welfare Center published announcements in the local media, but acknowledged that the winner might not be in Dongguan.