Ottawa Couple First Ontarians to Win $1 Million on $100 MILLION FORTUNE
TORONTO, July 13 /CNW/ - Ottawa couple Claudia Ferrante and James McKercher can happily say they are INSTANT millionaires. Ferrante and McKercher are the first Ontario winners of $1 million in the new nation-wide INSTANT lottery game $100 MILLION FORTUNE, the richest scratch game ever offered in Canada.
McKercher said that the couple has been playing $100 MILLION FORTUNE since it launched last December, but that when he scratched the $1 million prize amount on the game, they thought that it was a joke.
"I literally turned the card over and checked to see if it said 'just kidding' on the back!" laughed McKercher, who was at the Toronto Prize Centre with Ferrante to pick up their cheque.
The couple won the third of 14 $1 million prizes. There are 11 top prizes unclaimed, in addition to other large prizes of $50,000 and up.
Ferrante, a pharmacy technician, said that if it wasn't for her "points card" at the local gas station, she wouldn't have bought this ticket.
"I paid at the pump and then almost didn't go into the store to collect the points on my card, but remembered that I had some other lottery tickets to redeem. When I went to the counter, I got lucky, as I bought the last two $100 MILLION FORTUNE cards in the store!" explained Ferrante.
The couple plans on buying a house and a new car. Ferrante said that she is ecstatic that her dreams of owning a home are coming true.
"When we won, my first words were 'I can finally buy my house now!'," said Ferrante.
The winning ticket was purchased at Pioneer gas station on Industrial Ave in Ottawa.
$100 MILLION FORTUNE is the richest INSTANT lottery game ever offered in Canada. At time of launch, the game offered $100 million in prizes with 14 x $1 million prizes, the largest amount of $1 million prizes ever offered on a national INSTANT scratch game. Additional large prizes include ten prizes of $100,000, ten prizes of $50,000 and 80 prizes of $10,000. Each $100 MILLION FORTUNE is $10, and available at OLG retailers. More information can be found at www.olg.ca.
OLG is a provincial agency responsible for province-wide lottery games and gaming facilities. Since 1975, OLG lotteries, casinos, slots, and resort casinos have generated more than $32 billion for the benefit of the Province of Ontario. Gaming proceeds support Ontario's hospitals, amateur sport, recreational and cultural activities, communities, provincial priority programs such as health care and education, and local and provincial charities and non-profit organizations through the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
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