The Lotto Max
A Canadian couple managed to keep their lottery windfall secret for seven months.
Andrea and Bill Groner kept news of their $50 million lottery win among their immediate family until revealing themselves this week.
The couple from Edmonton won the $50 million Lotto Max jackpot on December 20.
Andrea realised her win two days after the draw, when she checked her ticket at a self-scanner at a shopping mall.
The couple then decided to keep to their normal routines for a period and continued to work.
But since their identity has been revealed, they said that they want to help family, friends and charities.
“We have some ideas for the money,” Andrea said as they picked up their cheque Tuesday at the Western Canada Lottery office.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” her husband added.
Recalling the moment she realised that she had won, Andrea said:
“I saw the amount on the screen. I didn’t have my glasses on, but I saw a lot of numbers. I asked the store clerk to look, too. She asked how much I thought I’d won. I said, ‘I won the lottery?’”
Not wanting to be overheard on the phone in the mall, Andrea waited until she got home to tell her husband the news.
“I had to double-check the numbers in the paper to be sure,” he said. “It was hard to believe.”
In response to be asked how she managed to keep hold of normality by continuing to work, Andrea said:
“A lot of people think they’d quit their job as soon as they found out. But you have friendships and relationships with the people you work with and it’s hard to just cut those ties. You don’t want to leave people in the lurch.”
The winning ticket was bought at a tobacco kiosk at Londonderry Mall in northeast Edmonton.
It is the second-largest lottery prize ever won in Alberta. The largest Canadian windfall also came from that province of $54.3 million, which was won by oilfield workers in a Lotto 6-49 draw in October 2005.
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