Queue dramatic cliff-hanger music – location; Iowa Lottery Headquarters – background plot – less than 2 hours to spare before the claim deadline of 4 p.m. Dec. 29, 2011 was due expire, New York attorney’s acting on behalf an unnamed winners trust finally made it to the Iowa Lottery offices to stake their multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot claim with a ticket bought from a petrol station in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, for the game drawn on Dec. 29, 2010.

Fast forward to last week’s meeting with Iowa Lottery investigators – the claimants lawyers refuse to answer ANY questions about the ticket’s ownership and are given until 3 p.m. today (Friday Jan. 27, 2012) to reveal the true identity of the winner or winners or the multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot payment will be refused.

Wow – a standoff big style, just wait until Hollywood gets onto this – the streets outside Iowa Lottery headquarters emptying faster than a shot dog through a barn, people diving for cover, the two protagonists eye-ball to eye-ball, (queue “musical pocket watch music” – as played in the movie For a Few Dollars More) in readiness for the 3 p.m. shootout – who blinks first – loses!

The outcome: the New York attorney blinks first – withdraws his claim by fax and agrees to “take no further action to enforce the claim.”

The twist: in order to ensure the integrity of the lottery, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich, asks the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa Attorney General to investigate the attorney who made the original claim as it needs to know just how the law firm obtained the ticket to make sure it wasn’t stolen and that a valid player bought it and whether those involved complied with state law.

What happens to the unclaimed loot? It now goes into the pot toward future prizes! Phew – be still my beating heart!

Peace of mind: whenever you buy your lottery tickets at WinTrillions you won’t ever have to worry about missing a prize deadline, dropping a result, losing your ticket or having it stolen, as we write your name across every ticket, email you with a scanned copy, keep it safely and securely on your behalf, check your numbers and help you with the claim process when you win!

Here’s something to get you thinking: if you lose a hundred bucks you’ll probably feel a bit hacked off; however should you WIN a hundred you’ll no doubt feel pretty good! Now the problem is this; if you’ve just lost the $100 the feelings you have about losing it, hack you off TWICE AS MUCH as any excitement you feel from winning the $100! Is that heavy, or what? This phenomenon is known universally as “loss aversion!”

Still need to be convinced? Toss a coin – heads you win a $100; tails you lose a $100. If you’re not comfortable with a straight 50 / 50, win / lose choice, then decide the biggest amount you ARE comfortable losing? To measure your degree of loss aversion, just divide $100 by your chosen amount.

Now that’s pretty much what we do whenever we decide to buy a lottery ticket, except we don’t do it scientifically! Most of us would probably be very uncomfortable about buying one million greenbacks worth of lottery tickets on the possibility of winning a multi-million jackpot, always assuming you had a spare million in the first place, but will quite readily spend one dollar on a lottery ticket to win the same jackpot, simply because one dollar is what we ARE comfortable with. Sociologists and anthropologists reckon loss aversion has helped humans survive in earlier environments, when the opportunity for gain by hunting down mega-beasts to eat was perceived to be far greater that any potential danger arising from the hunt itself!

So there we have it – if ever proof was needed – playing the lottery is obviously in our human DNA – so what are you waiting for? Never mind “mega-beasts” there are some “mega-million” jackpots up for grabs this very week, including Powerball, Super Enalotto, Indiana Hoosier, and EuroMillions with a collective total of TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT SEVEN MILLION dollars between them, and that’s just from 4 lotteries – the only requisite is a ticket and you can get one of those right here at WinTrillions, where you can play the world’s biggest and richest lotteries, without ever leaving your personal comfort zone or having to hunt down or be eaten by a mega-beast!

You must remember the song “Rainy Night in Georgia”, written by Tony Joe White way back in 1962 which became an instant hit for R&B vocalist Brook Benton in the spring of 1970. Well let me tell you the rain in Georgia has stopped, the sun’s about to shine and a whole new way of life beckons for one or more Georgia residents after matching the numbers 10 – 22 – 24 – 36 – 49 and Mega Ball 33 in last evening’s MegaMillions draw to take the first prize jackpot – a staggering SEVENTY-ONE MILLION dollars!

That’s the highest MegaMillions jackpot payout since Dec. 27 when husband and wife Daniel and Christine Bruckner from San Jose, California hit the New Year running after nailing the $206 million top prize.

Ten ticket holders; 2 from California, 2 from Illinois, 1 from Kentucky, 1 from Massachusetts, 2 from Michigan, 1 from Oregon, 1 from Pennsylvania matched the 5 main numbers to pull in up to $250,000 apiece and another twenty-two ticket holders grabbed themselves up to $16,000 each by matching 4 mains.

Just in case you didn’t already know on Jan. 24, 0041, the Roman Emperor and cruel despot Caligula was assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards: on Jan. 24, 1848, James Marshall found gold in Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California and on Jan. 24, 1976, Cleveland Cavaliers beat Milwaukee by 43 points (132 – 89) – so, I guess, Tuesday Jan. 24, 2012 will now hold special significance for a whole bunch of yesterday’s lottery winners!

The next Mega Millions draw is on Friday with a starting pot of $12 million; but before then, in just a few hours time, the beefed up Powerball draw takes place and there’s a ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY MILLION dollar jackpot! Remember, you can buy your tickets for MegaMillions and Powerball as well as many other of the world’s biggest lotteries right here at WinTrillions – just follow the links and you’re in the game!

The plot thickens! You may remember that the day before last New Year’s Eve, with less than 2 hours to spare before the claim deadline of 4 p.m. was due expire, lawyers acting on behalf the unnamed winning ticket holders finally made it to the Iowa Lottery offices to stake their multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot claim drawn the previous Dec 29^th 2010.

At the time, Iowa Lottery officials stated that they would not release the prize money until they met with and could verify the identities and contact information of the person(s) who bought the ticket at a Des Moines gas station in December 2010, and anyone else who possessed it between then and its Dec. 29 arrival at lottery headquarters.

However, during a meeting last week with lottery investigators, the claimants lawyers refused to answer questions about the ticket’s chain of custody and have now been given until 3 p.m. this Friday to reveal the true identity of the winner or winners or the jackpot payment will be denied. However the intransience doesn’t appear to lie with the Iowa Lottery who quite openly says, “show us the story and we’ll show you the money.”

Apparently attempting to hide the winner(s) identity is a classic example of what a “prohibited player” may do to go about claiming a prize. “Prohibited players” include employees and contractors of the lottery, their relatives and anyone under 21, including anyone who illegally possesses the ticket particularly in this instance as the Lottery has received several claims the ticket was stolen.

So it looks like a soap opera “cliff-hanger” par excellence – watch this space to find out how the plot unfurls!

Remember you can buy lottery tickets for Hot Lotto as well as for many other of the world’s biggest and richest lotteries and raffles right here at WinTrillions, what’s more you won’t ever have to worry about missing a result or losing your ticket or having it stolen, as we write your name across the top of every ticket you buy; send you a scanned copy, keep it safely and securely on your behalf and email you with the result!