"So surreal!" Heavy equipment operator to honeymoon with wife after $1 million lottery win
Luck is shining brightly on a young heavy equipment operator from Wingham, Ontario.
Pearson Smith won a Lotto 6/49 prize worth a whopping $1 million in the Gold Ball Draw in October last year, and he’s finally collected his windfall.
The 27-year-old visited the OLG Prize Centre in Toronto to snag his massive cheque and share his exciting story and plans.
A regular lottery player for the past five years, the new millionaire usually plays Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max.
“I typically forget about my tickets after buying them, so I usually have a big stack to check. I was at home checking them on the OLG app, and I won $20 on one of them, so I was already super excited about that,” he said. “When I scanned the big winner, I almost had a heart attack! My heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest!”
Pearson’s wife looked over at his phone as he was doing so.
“That says $1 million,'” she said, laughing with happiness and excitement. “It was so surreal!” Pearson commented.
The couple already has some plans to enjoy the win.
Pearson hopes to take his wife on their honeymoon and “enjoy a nice adventure together.”
“The rest will be invested, and we will make decisions together,” he shared.
The winning ticket was bought from a Petro Canada location in Wingham.
Another Ontarian recently celebrated winning the lottery for the third time.
While most of us can’t even win a FreePlay, let alone $20, Miroslaw Hawrylak, a senior mechanic for 25 years and a resident of Mississauga, won a whopping $50,000.
Hawrylak was familiar with the process of claiming a big win because he’d done it twice before. He said that in the past, he won $25,000 in the lottery twice.