Lottery player won $1,000 a week for life, but chose the lump sum — here's how much it was
One woman who thought she had won $4 in a lottery game was stunned to discover she had won a much bigger prize.
Fredericton, New Brunswick, resident Kim Campbell was on her way to work one day when she decided to buy five Set for Life Scratch’N Win tickets. When she played her tickets, she saw that she won $4. That is until she scanned her tickets using the Atlantic Lottery mobile ticket on her phone.
“I always check my tickets that way to get the 2Chance entries, so I scanned the first ticket, and it said, ‘Major winner, see retailer,” Campbell recalled. “I was like, ‘What?’ So I looked my ticket over and saw that I forgot to scratch one box on the game.”
She had won the top prize on Atlantic Lottery’s Set for Life Scratch’N Win game. Winners have two options: they can either receive $1,000 for 25 years or a lump sum payment of $675,000.
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“I just started shaking; it was extremely overwhelming,” said Campbell, who ended up choosing the lump sum payment. “It truly hasn’t sunk in yet at all; I’ve just been walking around in a daze. It’s so exciting.”
And the timing couldn’t be better.
“My son and his girlfriend are expecting a baby in July, so it’s just really good timing,” she said.
She added that her windfall will allow her to help her family, buy a new car, and take the family on vacation. However, her main priority is to save her winnings to retire in her early 60s.
The win also means that she no longer has to work five days a week as she can now afford to reduce her work schedule to four days a week.
“I’m so fortunate,” said Campbell.
Campbell purchased her winning Set for Life ticket at Sam’s Ultramar in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
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