Coronavirus: Florida Lottery offices closed to the public

Floridians turned to scratch-offs during the pandemic.

The Florida Lottery closed its office doors to the public Monday amid the growing new coronavirus outbreak and offered an alternative for winners to receive their awards.

Adults can still play lottery games and mail in their winning tickets to lottery offices, which remain operational. The move is to protect lottery employees and players from the virus, according to the Florida Lottery.

“The Florida Lottery temporarily closed its Headquarters and district offices to the public to minimize exposure to COVID-19, and to help protect our visitors and employees,” Florida Lottery spokeswoman Keri Nucatola said in a statement.

While the lottery is telling players it will accept winning tickets and documentation by mail, it also warns players of “various restrictions on mailing Lottery tickets” and states that players assume the risk of mailing the tickets.

In addition to mailing tickets with complete documentation, the cashing-in deadline has also been extended 90 days for winners who wish to claim their prizes in person.

“We anticipate this extension will be long enough to allow players to hold on to their winning tickets until Lottery offices reopen to the public,” Nucatola.

Awards less than $600 can still be claimed at authorized Florida Lottery retailers, but prizes $600 to $250,000 must be claimed at lottery headquarters or district offices. Prizes greater than $250,000 can only be claimed at the headquarters.

Tickets mailed to the Florida Lottery Headquarters will take approximately 30 days to process. Damaged, state owed debt and disputed tickets may take longer.

Winners generally have 180 days to collect Draw game prizes and 60 days to collect scratch-offs and Fast Play earnings.

The state now has more than 1,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 after reported numbers jumped considerably over the weekend with the roll out of larger testing sites. That includes 937 Florida residents and 70 non-state residents tested here.

With half a million sampling swabs still en route to Florida, testing capabilities and reported cases could increase soon. The state has seen 9,330 tests come back negative while 933 are still pending.

State officials have not issued a shelter-in-place order, but the need for one is being re-assessed every day.