A Califoia man launched a legal battle with the state's lottery Wednesday, saying they cheated him out of a $63 million prize.

A lawsuit was filed on behalf of Brandy Milliner in Los Angeles one day before the deadline to claim the jackpot. If no one produces the wiing ticket at a lottery office by 5 p.m. Thursday, the money will be forfeited to the state's schools.

Milliner claims he tued in the wiing SuperLotto Plus ticket and was told to expect his money. However, he claims lottery officials sent him a second letter last month declaring the ticket was too damaged to be processed.

Lottery spokesman Russ Lopez told the Los Angeles Times that it is standard procedure for the lottery to send congratulatory letters to wiers claiming a prize, though that doesn't mean they've won.

"The last-minute timing of this is suspicious,” Lopez told the paper. “I am not saying it’s not real."

The wiing ticket was sold on Aug. 8 at a 7-Eleven store on Lassen Street in the Chatsworth neighborhood. The wiing numbers are: 46-1-33-30-16 and the Mega number: 24.

The wier can accept the $63 million in payments spread out over 30 years or accept a much smaller lump sum of $39.9 million (before federal taxes).

The lottery has repeatedly issued statements urging the wier to come forward before the deadline.

"From my perspective, I'm here and it would be pretty much the best thing for me if the wier popped in the door and we'll have a little celebration," spokesman Alex Traverso said.

Currently the largest unclaimed Califoia Lottery prize in history was $28.5 million. The wiing ticket was sold in 2003 in San Lorenzo in Alameda County.

It's harder to determine the largest unclaimed prize for a lottery game in U.S. history. But one contender must certainly be a $77 million Powerball jackpot won in Georgia in 2011.

In Califoia, between $20 million and $30 million in prizes from various state-only lottery games go unclaimed every year, Traverso said. Last year, it was about $27.1 million. By contrast, the lottery paid out $3.9 billion in prizes last year on sales of $5.5 billion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.