People buy lotteries at a sports lottery shop in Baoji city, Shaanxi province, on Nov 21.[Photo/CFP]

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.

A few years ago, in one of the more well-known cases of winners not claiming their money, two brothers who were migrant workers in the construction industry returned home for the harvest season and failed to claim the 10 million yuan they had won. Therefore, more efficient ways should be found to ensure people know that they have won a lottery.

Second, is the claim expiration date reasonable? Although the claim period has been extended from the original 30 days to 60 days, it could still be longer, as people may forget where they put their winning lottery tickets and they may take time to find them.

Third, why not add the unclaimed winnings to the prize pool? In this way more people might be encouraged to participate, which would undoubtedly raise more funds for public welfare and help the lottery business grow.