"I've been practicing for this moment for 32 years!": Man celebrates big lottery win

Have you ever wondered what you’d do if you win the lottery? One winner has been practicing for his big moment for over 30 years.

Alton Johnson from Richmond Hill, Ontario, said that he’s been playing the lottery for “many years.”

In October, the 51-year-old father who works in education purchased a lottery ticket and decided to check the results on Thanksgiving weekend.

“I thought there was an error on the machine so I scanned it again and took a closer look,” he said. Johnson then took a picture of the results on the screen and sent it to his wife.

The screen showed that he had won the Lotto 6/49 prize worth $1 million in the September 17 draw.

Alton Johnson/OLG

“But she was busy preparing Thanksgiving dinner,” he recalled. “So I had to go home and tell her.”

Afterwards, they decided to scan his ticket again to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.

“We took the ticket to a different store to check it and that’s when we finally believed it was true because there’s no way two machines were defective,” he said.

After imagining the moment for decades, Johnson finally got to live his dream when he went to pick up his cheque at the OLG Prize Centre in Toronto.

“I’ve been practicing for this moment for 32 years!” he said.

He added that he already has plans for his winnings: he’ll be putting some money aside for his children’s education and will be taking his wife for a vacation for “some fun in the sun.”

“I know the odds are slim so when it happened it was unbelievable – it’s been nice!” said Johnson.

The winning ticket was purchased at Sunny’s Gas & Variety on Scugog Street in Port Perry.