Canadian woman finds winning lottery ticket in wallet a month before it expires
A woman from Quebec came close to losing her million-dollar lottery prize.
Stéphanie Vila was cleaning out her wallet a few days before going on vacation to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything.
That’s when she found several lottery tickets that had been buried in her wallet for a few months.
The Montérégie resident headed over to a retailer to get them checked.
CNW Group/Loto-Québec
At first, when she saw the zeros on the self-serve ticket checker, she thought, “This can’t be right. The machine isn’t working properly.”
After a second try, Vila had the ticket validated by the store attendant.
“Her eyes were wide open! She asked me, ‘Is this really a million?’ So, I answered, “I think so!’” she said.
It turns out that one of the lottery tickets hidden in her wallet was a winner of a Maxmillions prize in the Lotto Max draw from October 18… 2022!
She had purchased the winning ticket at the Super C located at 2125 Boulevard Rolland-Thérrien in Longueuil almost a year earlier.
Vila claimed her windfall just in time on September 18, 11 months after the draw and one month before the deadline to claim the prize.
“I can’t believe I had a ticket worth one million in my wallet this whole time! I almost lost my prize!” she said.
The lucky lotto player called her parents, who were the first to learn the amazing news.
Vila plans to invest the money and use some of it to travel abroad.
This isn’t the first time a lottery prize has gone unclaimed for that long.
In May, a massive $70 million Lotto Max jackpot had been unclaimed for a year, and it was about to expire in June.
After an extensive search by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming corporation (OLG), which was flooded with thousands of inquiries, the ticket officially expired without being cashed in.
If you bought a ticket in Quebec, Loto-Québec is still looking for the owners of six winning tickets.
Some of the prizes, ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, must be claimed before October 7, 2023, as seen below.
Make sure you don’t forget to check your tickets!