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Winning a lottery has got to be the most dizzying moment of elation out there.

Except for one woman in California, who was probably spinning with regret after she claimed she washed the winning ticket with her pants.

The winning SuperLotto Plus ticket for the November 14 drawing was sold at an Arco AM/PM convenience store in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk, and this past Thursday was the last day to redeem it.

But nobody claimed the win.

Instead, the lucky lady claims she washed her chances of getting the $26 million prize (around R370 million), quite literally, down the drain.

Let’s change that to *unlucky lady.

Workers at the Arco AM/PM store told CNN affiliate KCBS/KCAL that a woman who bought the ticket recently came in and said the ticket was destroyed when she washed it with her laundry.

That must have been hard to admit out loud.

So there’s no more ticket, obviously, but the store does have security footage showing the woman buying a ticket.

Unfortunately, this footage is not enough to prove she had it, as per the California Lottery spokeswoman Cathy Johnston who spoke to CNN:

She said players should always sign their tickets and photograph, or copy, the front and back of the ticket to prove that they had possession of it at one point.

Johnston also said that the women had not contacted the lottery’s office and that she didn’t know where the woman reported the loss, if she did at all:

“If she did, we will investigate as we always do. If she did not, there is nothing to investigate and no more we can do,” Johnston wrote in an email.

There are some lucky winners in all this, though.

The store that sold the ticket will receive a $130 000 bonus, and the jackpot’s $19,7 million cash value will be transferred to the state’s public schools.

[sources:cnn&kcra]