Lump sum: Canton lotto club beats 1-year deadline

A member of a family Canton Township lottery club turned in a winning $25,000-a-year-for-life ticket Wednesday morning at Michigan Lottery offices, just beating the one-year deadline winners have to claim their winnings.

The Hissom Lottery Club drew a winner in the Lucky For Life game on Jan. 1, 2018, with numbers 15-18-25-31-35. The winning ticket was purchased at the Picnic Basket in Plymouth.

The ticket went unclaimed the rest of 2018, though, and the Michigan Lottery publicly urged the winner to come forward before it expired. Lottery officials on Wednesday said the ticket was just hours away from expiring on Jan. 2. 

On Wednesday the group, through 84-year-old Robert Hissom, did turn in the winning ticket. If not for the lottery system's publicity effort, the club would've missed out on the opportunity.

Hissom told lottery officials that he saw a news story indicating the winning ticket had been bought where the club buys its tickets, at the Picnic Basket. 

"I buy tickets every week for Lucky for Life and after I check them, I tuck them away if they aren't winners," Hissom is quoted in a statement published Tuesday by the Michigan Lottery. "I saw a story on the news about a ticket sold at the Picnic Basket about to expire, so I went back to check my old tickets and found the winner."

The lottery club, Hissom said, was the idea of his late ex-wife, and has been around for more than 30 years, "in case we ever won big."

Hissom, along with his son and daughter, claimed their winnings Wednesday at lottery headquarters in Lansing. Rather than take $25,000 for 20 years, they took a lump sum payment of $390,000.