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A retired railway employee from Ontario is $40 million richer from winning the Lotto Max jackpot after purchasing two tickets — one for himself and one for his daughter.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) said 79-year-old Bernard White of Oshawa, Ont., was the jackpot winner from the Feb. 21 draw.White said he’s been buying two Lotto Max tickets a week for the past couple of years.“One for me and one for my daughter,” he said. “Before I go to bed, I always tell her to pick one. This time, she picked the wrong one.”Despite his daughter choosing the losing ticket, White said, “She’s going to be well taken care of.”“My daughter means a lot to me because, when my (now) late wife and I had her, she was the only child we could have,” White said. White said his daughter, who wakes up early for work in the morning, alerted him to the draw, saying she thought he had won $40,000 from Lotto Max.
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“I looked at her, half asleep, and replied, ‘That’s great! Now we can both pay off our cars,’” he said.About five or ten minutes later, White said there was a knock on the door. His daughter then corrected herself saying, “Dad, I think you won $40 million.”“Now I really wanted to jump out of bed, but I couldn’t because I sleep in the nude. I would’ve hit the ceiling if I’d had underwear on,” White said.It’s not the first time someone has mistaken the winning amount to be in the thousands versus in the millions. The Jan. 31 Lotto Max jackpot winner, an Order of Canada recipient, mistook his $25 million lotto win for $25,000 and said, “I didn’t have my glasses on.”
Meanwhile, White said he and his daughter, who left work early because of the excitement, visited the store where he’d purchased the ticket to check the win at the terminal.“It lit up like a Christmas tree,” White said.The winning ticket was purchased at a Shell gas station on Taunton Road East in Oshawa, Ont., OLG said.The OLG said White is an avid fisherman and music lover and wants to buy a new fishing rod and a set of $3,000 speakers.When asked what he would do with the remaining $39,996,800, White said he planned to share it with family members, including his siblings and daughter. “I’ve dreamt about winning big money and sharing it with my family, White said. “It’s going to be a wonderful feeling to help them. I’ll be the favourite uncle for sure.”White also wants to travel, which may include a cruise around Newfoundland, where he was born, and support health organizations.“I now plan to live life to the fullest and have fun,” he said.
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