Calls to winners of vaccine lottery’s second round start Wednesday morning

More than 250 people will start getting calls, emails and text messages on Wednesday, letting them know they’ve won a prize in the second round of the state’s vaccine lottery.

Tuesday morning, the lottery drew numbers that health officials match with names in the vaccine database.

Winners will need to claim their prize within 72 hours.

Last week during the first round, 103 of 249 prizes went unclaimed.

KIRO 7 asked Washington’s Lottery Director Marcus Glasper if that suggests a fundamental problem.

“I wouldn’t say so, I think with the fast rate with which this promotion is happening, we had to set some rules around it,” Glasper said.

With all the attention on the “Shot of a Lifetime” lottery, the state Attorney General’s office is warning people to look out for scams.

Lottery officials will never ask for your bank account or social security number, and the state has a system for skeptical winners to verify the call is actually from the lottery.

“By being proactive, they may help prevent some of these scams,” said Christopher Budd of the security company Avast.

He said scammers look for any opportunity.

“We know attackers will pile onto things that they think are plausible and of interest to people,” Budd said.

Glasper said there have been a couple of reports of attempted fraud, but the people who got the calls did the right thing and checked with the lottery.

Unclaimed prizes will be added to the final drawing on July 13.

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