Ontario man calls $55M Lotto Max win an ‘out-of-body experience’ | Globalnews.ca
With a free play in Lotto Max, an Ontario man went from just making a grocery run to becoming a millionaire.
Francois Masse of Hawkesbury, Ont., said Wednesday that he can still hardly believe it two months after winning in the Jan. 9 draw.
He said in a news release from OLG that he was leaving the Asselin’s Your Independent Grocer on Cameron Street when he remembered he had a free play ticket from a previous draw to redeem.
“I added ENCORE for $1, put the ticket in my wallet, and went on about my day,” he recalled.
Masse was at the OLG Prize Centre on Wednesday to collect his winnings.
He said it was a few days after he remembered he had three tickets to check and scanned them with the OLG app.
The first ticket won him another free play, the second was worth $40, but when he scanned the last one, he was in “disbelief.”
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“I saw the ‘Big Winner’ message on the screen and went numb with disbelief — it was like the world stopped for a minute,” he said. “It was an out-of-body experience. I kept telling myself it couldn’t be true.”
Masse said that after pacing around the house for five minutes, he checked the ticket again and saw the same message.
He then made a call to OLG for information about the prize claim process, and took another three hours to process before he called his family to tell them the news.
But even that took some convincing since he said his family likes to joke a lot.
“We all know we’ll commit to a joke and pull each other’s legs, so they thought I was just really committed to my prank! Even my mom didn’t believe me,” Masse said.
The retired education worker said he knew he wanted to tell his children about the win in person, so he invited them over and, when they were together, had his kids scan the winning ticket for themselves.
“There were a lot of happy tears,” he said. “It was a wonderful, incredible moment to share as a family. I was filled with joy.”
Plans are already starting to take shape, Masse said, including a family trip to celebrate and then checking items off his bucket list, such as Formula 1 races and touring NFL stadiums.
He added he will be taking steps to ensure his family is taken care of, saying the win is for his family and “the legacy we’ll leave behind.”
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