"I couldn't believe it": BC woman discovers her $1M lotto win on Facebook

A seemingly mindless scroll through her Facebook feed resulted in a $1 million lotto win for a woman from Merritt, BC.

This past Saturday, Natalie Jylha was home watching TV and perusing the social media site, when she noticed someone posted that a winning ticket purchased in Merritt won the January 30, 2021 Lotto 6/49 $1 Million Guaranteed Prize Draw.

“I ran and got my ticket and checked the results online,” Jylha said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was a really surreal experience.”

Jylha, who purchased her ticket at Walmart, couldn’t help but wake up her husband once she realized she was holding a Lotto 6/49 ticket worth $1 million.

“I just kept saying, ‘I won a million! I won a million!’” Jylha recalled. “He didn’t believe me.”

• See also:
  • Man attacked by coyote while jogging on seawall in Stanley Park
  • Canada “closely monitoring” recombinant COVID-19 discovered in California
  • Canada’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan named one of TIME’s next 100 most influential people

At that point, Jylha was way too excited to sleep and called her mom and spent “hours” on the phone talking with her.

“We were both in shock,” she recalled.

Jylha says she is thinking about purchasing a new vehicle and potentially a new home, but for the time being she is enjoying the feeling of financial freedom.