Eastern Passage man wins $500,000 from Lotto Max ticket
Posted Nov 13, 2020 07:01:18 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEWS RELEASE
LOTTO MAX
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John McDonald of Eastern Passage, N.S. went two weeks without knowing he had a $500,000 winning Lotto Max ticket waiting for him at home while he was on an extended camping trip.
When he finally came out of the woods more than two weeks after the Oct. 6 draw, he got the surprise of a lifetime.
“I went to the gas station and I took all my tickets to be checked and I had a bunch of tickets with small wins that I gave to the cashier to get my small $4 prizes or whatever,” McDonald said. “She was scanning them, and she goes ‘You just won some money, Jack,’ and when she showed me how much I just lost it.”
McDonald had won a free play on a previous Lotto Max ticket, and it was his free play ticket that then paid off big with Maxmillions.
“I was looking at it and thinking, ‘That was a free play and I got all seven numbers on it,’” McDonald said. “I don’t pick my numbers and for that to happen on a free play, just wow.”
Maxmillions are additional $1-million prizes that are drawn when the Lotto Max jackpot reaches $50 million. This Maxmillions prize was shared with another ticket sold in Ontario with the same numbers. Each player took home $500,000.
“It’s so surreal, you keep thinking ‘Is this real? Did I really win?’” McDonald said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people that live in the HRM area and of all those people, I won the lotto? Just me, out of all those people? It’s insane.”
McDonald, who is already retired, plans to use his winnings to pay off both his home and his vehicle.
The winning Lotto Max ticket was purchased at the Wilkinson Avenue Needs in Dartmouth, N.S. The retailer will receive a one per cent seller’s prize.
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