MESA, Ariz., July 8 /PRNewswire/ — The odds of winning most lottery prizes may be long. But when your numbers do come in, the least you should do is claim your prize, something too many people forget to do, says Mark La Voy, founder of Unclaimedlotterys.com.
Some $628 million went unclaimed in 2007, and La Voy, whose free Web site started this year, says more winnings are on track to be lost in 2008.
“California is one of the worst states for people not checking their lottery tickets,” La Voy says. “For some reason people in California are just too busy to check their tickets and every month hundreds of thousands of dollars go unclaimed.”
La Voy knows from experience. One day his wife handed him a stack of Arizona lottery tickets. Some, which were almost a year old, were actually winners. But La Voy was too late. All lottery tickets in Arizona expire in 180 days or six months after the draw date.
“Not surprisingly, state lotteries do little to try and find the owners of unclaimed winning tickets,” La Voy says.
Currently, the site lists about half the states that run lotteries and unclaimed prizes in the U.S. of $10,000 or greater. La Voy also tries to find out more about the winning tickets, including when and where they were purchased, and whether the numbers were picked by the customer or done as a quick pick.
Back in California, there is almost $2 million set to go unclaimed in the next three months. California lottery players have 180 days to collect their prize.
If you played Mega Millions, Fantasy 5 or Super Lotto Plus lottery games in the last six months, visit to check tickets.
Unclaimedlotterys.com

GERMANTOWN, Maryland, July 8 /PRNewswire/ —

- Five-Year Contract with Spain’s Leading Gaming Technology Company
Includes Redundant HN System and over 2800 Broadband Routers

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband
satellite network solutions and services, today announced that Sistemas
Tecnicos de Loterias del Estado (STL) has awarded its wholly owned
subsidiary, HNS Ltd., a contract to provide a geographically redundant HN
System Network Operations Center (NOC), 2800 HN7700S broadband satellite
routers, and support/maintenance services for five years. STL provides
information technology and telecommunications services to the Entidad Publico
Empresarial Loterias y Apuestas del Estado Espanol (LAE), the Spanish state
lottery authority. Handling over two million lottery transactions per year,
STL is Spain’s leading gaming technology and telecommunications company.

“We issued an RFP in order to find the most suitable communications
solution for our lower volume, more remote point-of-sales sites,” said
Alfonso Pedro Fernandez Garcia, STL’s Director of Communications and New
Sales Channels. “We evaluated mobile communications, DSL, and satellite IP
technologies, and from 15 proposals concluded that the best balance among
Quality of Service (QoS) assurance, cost per transaction, and coverage would
be provided by a satellite IP solution. We chose the HN System from Hughes
because of the capabilities of the HN7700S platform and our long-standing
relationship with Hughes. As we are migrating from X.25 to pure IP, we needed
the latest, state-of-the-art equipment which will enable us to provide better
service quality and enable future broadband applications.”
“This agreement builds upon our successful 10 year relationship with STL
and is evidence of the strategic importance of the lottery sector to Hughes
and our leadership in serving it, following major contracts with GTECH in the
US and Camelot in the UK,” said Luigi Pagni, vice president, Sales and
Marketing of Hughes Europe. “STL will now enjoy the benefits of our latest HN
System platform which is based on the world’s most widely deployed standard,
IPoS/DVBS2 with ACM (adaptive coding modulation), yielding higher throughputs
and more efficient bandwidth utilization.”
Installation of the HN System NOCs began in May and of the remote
satellite terminals shortly thereafter, with rollout scheduled to be
completed in the first quarter of 2009.

About Sistemas Tecnicos de Loterias del Estado

Sistemas Tecnicos de Loterias del Estado S.A. (STL), headquartered in
Madrid, was formed in 1988 to provide information technology and
telecommunciations services to the Entidad Publico Empresarial Loterias y
Apuestas del Estado Espanol, the Spanish state lottery authority. Over the
years, STL has maintained and updated its infrastructure and applications,
concentrating on updating equipment and on the design and development of new
solutions. Among STL’s strategies is to design and develop management systems
certified by entities of recognized prestige. Thus, STL has created a Quality
Management System certified by AENOR, in accordance with the corresponding
ISO standard and has been awarded the World lottery Association security
qualification.

For additional information, please visit www.stl.es/web/en/portada.

About Hughes Network Systems

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) is the global leader in providing
broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments,
small businesses, and consumers. HughesNet(R) encompasses all broadband
solutions and managed services from Hughes, bridging the best of satellite
and terrestrial technologies. Its broadband satellite products are based on
global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations,
including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A and GMR-1. To date, Hughes has shipped more than
1.5 million systems to customers in over 100 countries.

Headquartered outside Washington, D.C., in Germantown, Maryland, USA,
Hughes maintains sales and support offices worldwide. Hughes is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: HUGH). For
additional information, please visit www.hughes.com.

(C)2008 Hughes Network Systems, LLC. Hughes and HughesNet are registered
trademarks of Hughes Network Systems, LLC.

Web site: http://www.hughes.com
http://www.stl.es/web/en/portada

Hughes Network Systems, LLC

SAN DIEGO, July 1 /PRNewswire/ — Pronosticos para la Asistencia Publica, the public lottery organization of the Federal Government that provides significant resources for public assistance while operating and distributing the leading lottery games nationwide in Mexico, has successfully rolled out the first mobile state lottery network in the Americas. This innovative development was made after considering the increasing popularity of mobile devices in Mexico and the technologies available to create new channels for interactive distribution of lottery games. Pronosticos para la Asistencia Publica along with Digital Orchid, the leading operator and developer of wireless content and distribution services for regulated lottery games, reached an agreement to launch an innovated system that allows people to play the lottery in Mexico from the comfort of their homes. The service is available nationwide for the popular Melate lottery game and is called Melate Movil.
Melate Movil is the first totally wireless state lottery sales channel in the Americas that allows people to participate in games and draws through mobile devices. The Melate Movil lottery service was initially made available to all subscribers of Telcel, the leading mobile phone operator in Mexico, starting April 15, 2008. With the purchase of a Melate Movil prepaid card, which are available at retail locations nationwide at a cost of sixty or one hundred pesos, players will be able to fund their Melate Movil accounts. The account will be generated once the player enters the Melate Movil system from their cell phone’s browser. This procedure prevents fraud when participating in the draw. The players’ accounts will not have minimum or maximum balance amounts since their balance will be determined by the players themselves based on the number of times they want to play and the number of cards they choose to purchase. By logging into their accounts, players will be able to play Melate con Revancha from a Telcel cell phone, without incurring any browser charges. They just have to decide which version they want to play; Classic Melate or Melatico Quick Pick
Just as easy and simple as it is to play, knowing if one is a winner is even simpler. The lottery system will let the players know when the draw is over as well as provide them with the draw results and prize amounts. The player then has the choice to either credit the prize to their account or to collect the prize money from an authorized Pronosticos para la Asistencia Publica payment center or authorized retail agent that is responsible for the prize payments for each of the draws. Telcel is not responsible for the payment of prizes; Pronosticos para la Asistencia Publica will be entirely responsible for the prize payouts.
With guaranteed prizes of a minimum of 40 million pesos and jackpots that have surpassed 400 million pesos, Melate con Revancha is without a doubt the most popular state lottery game in Mexico.
So play with Mexico, and help the public assistance organization by participating in the Melate con Revancha lottery from your Melate Movil cell phone … Do you see yourself as a millionaire on your cell phone yet?
Contact: Digital Orchid
858-847-9900
Digital Orchid

PASADENA, Calif., June 9 /PRNewswire/ — NearU Search () has inked a deal with Ann Arbor, MI based lottery results provider LotteryUSA () to offer the most recent draw information to members via text message. The LottoWatch premium subscription will be available in June across all 50 states.
“This is the promise of mobile convenience. The Internet is great when you have time. But time is so scarce. People are looking for ways to make information come to them. That’s where we come in.” said Heather Mlodinow, NearU Search CEO. LotteryUSA users will be able to sign up for winning number text alerts on the LotteryUSA site.
“LotteryUSA has always been about helping users access the latest lottery results with ease. NearU Search is all about providing convenient, fast, wireless access to a variety of data, making them a perfect partner for bringing LotteryUSA to the Mobile market. We are excited that NearU Search has been able to deliver this solution so quickly.” said LotteryUSA’s Fred Weiss.
Ms. Mlodinow said, “LotteryUSA subscribers will be getting winning number alerts for each lottery draw. Now we’ll be able to spot a winner — look for the gal dancing in the street waving her mobile in one hand and her lottery ticket in the other!”
About NearU Search
NearU Search is the leader in local search and premium text alerts. The company uses ground-breaking search technology to power local search and alert products through shortcode 63278 (NearU). NearU Search text products and services are designed to provide lifestyle information on the go to users who want to spend more time living and less time searching. The premium SMS products developed by NearU Search are available for mobile phones on all major U.S. carriers and boast the fastest response time in the industry.
About LotteryUSA
LotteryUSA.com first launched in 1996. LotteryUSA was founded on the idea of visitors finding the earliest and most accurate lottery results in just 1 click. For 12 years LotteryUSA.com has continued to bring visitors the most recent results, with just 1 click on the home page. LotteryUSA.com is hosted and maintained by , of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in partnership with Abound Media, Inc. of Windsor, Ontario. Lottery-Data.com has been providing lottery reporting services and results for over 20 countries worldwide since 1999.
Contact:
Antony Radbod
917.720.8053

NearU Search

HARRISBURG, Pa., April 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Secretary of Revenue Tom Wolf today announced that after reviewing best and final offers, the department has selected Scientific Games International Inc. to supply terminal-based game services to the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Scientific Games, based in Alpharetta, Ga., was chosen following an open and competitive procurement process. Wolf said a committee comprised of employees from the Department of Revenue and the PA lottery began evaluating vendor proposals in July.
In January, Wolf announced that the department had selected GTECH Corp., based in Providence, R.I., to enter into contract negotiations to provide the terminal-based lottery game services. In March, after GTECH Corp. advised the department of a change in the equipment presented in its proposal, Wolf announced that Revenue had suspended contract negotiations and was soliciting best and final offers from the two companies that submitted proposals in response to the Lottery’s request for proposals for gaming system and related services.
After reviewing the best and final offers, the committee scored Scientific Games’ proposal highest overall based on its technical expertise, minority participation and cost.
Wolf said the department will immediately begin negotiations with Scientific Games on a five-year contract, with up to five, one-year extensions.
The terms of the contract will not be determined until it is finalized, but Wolf said the cost will be significantly less per year compared to the commonwealth’s existing contract. Wolf said Scientific Games will be paid a percentage of the Lottery’s ticket sales. The contract will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2009.
Services provided by Scientific Games under the new contract will include:
— Replacing the communications network and terminals at all Lottery
retail locations. The new terminals will feature touch-screen
technology and online support for retailers and they will also allow
players to check their own tickets to see if they have won.
— Training retailers to use the equipment; installing and maintaining
the new system and terminals; managing the retailer call center and
other retailer-support services.
— Supporting new game development and other marketing initiatives.

Scientific Games currently provides terminal-based lottery services to the PA Lottery, but that contract will expire on Dec. 31. The company was paid approximately $50 million for fiscal year 2006-07 based on lottery sales of $3.076 billion.
Scientific Games also provides instant game services to the Lottery. In August 2006, Scientific Games was selected to provide instant game services for five years, with up to five, one-year extensions. That contract became effective April 10, 2007.
CONTACT: Stephanie Weyant
(717) 787-6960
Pennsylvania Department of Revenue