An amazing run of lotto luck on the Prairies this year led to a record-breaking number of new millionaires.
"We had a record-breaking year in 2010, an amazingly record-shattering year," said Andrea Marantz of the Western Canada Lottery Corp. "We had 53 winners of $1 million or more. To put that in some kind of context, our previous record was 29."
That happened in 1993.
This year's 53 jackpots from various game draws, including Lotto 6-49 and Lotto Max, totalled more than a quarter of a billion dollars, Marantz said. That's on top of any other prizes that were handed out.
The biggest single winner was Cameron Blair, an unemployed welder from Beaumont, Alta., who won $41.7 million on April 23. Things had looked grim when he got laid off a few weeks earlier, so he bought a Lotto Max ticket to try his luck.
It was the second-largest jackpot ever paid out to an individual in Canada.
Two $1-million prizes even went to the sparsely populated Northwest Territories.
Marantz offered an explanation for the unusual winning streak.
"I think it was a combination of things. Of course, it's always luck, which is such a random thing, but the other thing was the introduction of Lotto Max, which is a game that provides more opportunities to win $1 million and more ... and that game has proved very popular in the West."
The lotto corporation said most newly minted millionaires need some time to truly think through what to do with all that cash. But some commonly heard plans include sharing money with family, paying off bills and loans, buying a new vehicle and travelling. Many winners also said they planned to give some of their windfall to charity.
And, if you haven't won yet this year, there's still time. Friday’s Lotto Max jackpot sits at $50 million and the Lotto 6-49 Christmas Day draw is for an estimated $3.5 million.
Perhaps Lady Luck will join Santa Claus on his rounds.
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