Four decades of buying lottery tickets finally paid off for a Fonthill couple. Carolyn and Brian Steven matched, in order, the last six of seven numbers in the Encore portion of the July 23 Lotto Max draw to claim a $100,000 prize.
The couple have been playing various lottery games – Lotto 649 and Lottario as well as Lotto Max – for 40 years. Every time, they’d plunk down that extra dollar to play Encore. That’s just what the couple did when the purchased what turned out to be their winning ticket at the Circle K on Pelham Street in Fonthill.
Brian Steven found out the hard way that sleeping and winning a serious amount of cash on a lottery don’t necessarily work well together.
“It was late in the evening when I walked past the kitchen and saw our tickets,” he said while the couple were at the OLG Prize Centre in Toronto to claim their winnings. “I decided to check them, which ended up being a rookie mistake. Finding out that we had won big kept us up all night.”
For her part, Carolyn said she could not believe their good fortune.
“I was left stunned. I couldn’t utter a word and was left still as a rock,” she said. “We told our close friends and family, and they were all beyond happy for us.”
The couple said they plan to invest some of the winnings as well as add to their savings.
