Moncton (N.B.) – They are northern New Brunswick’s latest MAXMILLIONaires but Eric Godin and Normande Therrien wasted no time buying their tickets for this Friday’s LOTTO MAX draws, where there’s $100-million in jackpot prizes up for grabs. The siblings won a MAXMILLIONS prize on the June 29, 2012 draw.
“It seems real now,” says Normande, “but when I first found out I was shaking. It was like a dream.” Her brother Eric was more overwhelmed. He cried.
The brother and sister team play together a lot and the family often buys tickets as gifts. Whenever one buys, they are always quick to say ‘if you win, you’ll give me half.’ Good thing!
It was their father, Fernand who first heard the “winning woohoo”. Eric, a carpenter, was working and asked his dad to check the ticket. When the ticket was scanned, the clerk said “You won something big.”
Fernand left the store amidst a slew of handshakes and high fives from customers and headed home. He gave Eric the list of winning numbers and asked him to check them against the ticket. Fernand is a jokester and Eric was skeptical. He could hardly believe it when the ticket matched up to one set of MAXMILLIONS winning numbers.
Normande rushed to her dad’s house after getting a phone call. “He said to come right away. He sounded serious” she recalls. “When I arrived, Dad said we’d won a trip to Florida to go fishing for sharks. We’re always getting those telemarketing calls, so I thought he was joking.”
“Then he handed me the ticket saying we won $1-million and I thought ’OK that’s the joke’.” It was no joke but she only believed him after talking to Atlantic Lottery’s customer care representative.
The siblings say that they’ll keep working – and buying tickets. While Eric plans to finish his house, complete with a nursery for his first child, Normande says she’ll pay off some debts and help pay off her daughter’s student loan. While they won’t be fishing sharks in sunny Florida, they say they’ll take their father on a fishing trip to St. Quentin.
For those of us still dreaming about hitting the big one, Friday night’s record-breaking LOTTO MAX draw features a $50-million jackpot as well as 50 MAXMILLIONS draws. Players can purchase their tickets until roughly 10 PM Friday (10:30 PM in Newfoundland and Labrador) for the draw, either online at alc.ca or at one of the more than 3,000 retail locations across the four provinces.
Epicerie Savoie in Sainte-Anne de Madawaska will receive a 1% seller’s prize for selling the winning ticket.
Atlantic Lottery is a public corporation owned by the governments of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. That means that 100% of our profits...yes, every single penny...is returned to the four Atlantic provinces. Want to hear more of our story? Visit www.AskAway.ca and get to know us a little bit better.
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Media Contacts:
Lindsay Shannon
lindsay.shannon@alc.ca
Direct: 506-867-5800 ext. 5281