That’s a lotto money!

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This article was published 06/02/2021 (1920 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipegger John Chua and his family have a few more reasons to feel happy amid the gloom of the pandemic — 60 million reasons, to be precise.

That’s because Chua, along with his wife, Jhoana, mother Angie, and uncle Ben Lagman, were revealed Tuesday as winners of the largest lottery jackpot awarded in Manitoba history, and the largest win from a ticket purchased online in Canada.

Chua confessed this week he was originally jealous after hearing someone in Winnipeg had won the $60-million Lotto Max prize, not knowing it was him.

Then he received the email from lottery platform PlayNow.com that changed his life: he and his family had won two free plays, a $20 prize — and the $60-million jackpot.

“My mind just went blank, that’s it,” Chua said in an interview with the Western Canada Lottery Corp. released Tuesday. “I couldn’t think of anything but: ‘Is this real?’ That was all I could think of.”

The family’s ticket was the only one in Canada to match all seven numbers in the Jan. 22 draw: 11, 21, 23, 25, 28, 41, 43. The win was more than double the previous Winnipeg record: a $27.2-million Lotto 6/49 jackpot in 2005 by Dawn Fraser. The provincial record was a $50-million Lotto Max jackpot in 2009, by Kirby and Marie Fontaine of Sagkeeng First Nation.

The Winnipeggers are not the only ones to claim a record bonanza, as we see from today’s high-priced list of Five Famously Lucky Lottery Winners Around the World:

5) The jackpot: About C$200 million

The winner: Northern Ireland’s Frances Connolly

Getting lucky: It’s better to give than receive. Just ask Northern Ireland lottery winner Frances Connolly, who struck it big on New Year’s Day 2019. That’s when Frances and her businessman husband, Patrick, scooped a £114.9-M fortune — and then immediately began giving it away to family and friends. Connolly recently revealed that the couple had handed over half of their windfall to others in the biggest-ever lottery giveaway, helping “thousands” of people. She told the Belfast Telegraph that she had “lost count of the number of times I’ve cried my eyes out” following a recipient’s response to her generosity. The generous winners have also launched two charities to help people in the area around Hartlepool, where they set up home as a young married couple. The mother of three, who suffers from a medical condition that is expected to land her in a wheelchair, knows money can’t buy everything. “My auntie told me I had Perthes’ disease as a kid,” she told the Belfast Telegraph. “When I was a baby I had a big metal frame around my hips; my dad used to be able to pick me up with the back of the frame… I actually spent about three years in Northern Ireland sitting on a chair because I couldn’t really go anywhere or do anything. I had an operation the year before we won the Lottery and it has got me back on my feet again for a bit, but I will eventually not be able to walk, so I’m preparing for that.” Connolly is used to giving away pounds to charity, but now she’s shedding them to help raise money for young care workers. Last month, she began a sponsored weight-loss challenge, aiming to shed 25 pounds over 12 weeks to raise £50,000 for a respite caravan for two local charities. “Like a lot of people, I’ve put on weight during the lockdown, and I have mobility issues,” she said. “It’s something I have to do for health reasons, so it’s an extra incentive that charity can benefit.”

4) The jackpot: About C$307 million

The winner: An anonymous French retiree

Getting lucky: Northern Ireland isn’t the only place that’s home to generous lottery winners. It was announced near the end of last December that France’s biggest-ever EuroMillions Lottery winner plans to give away millions of euros to good causes. The anonymous French retiree, whose numbers came up to win a jackpot of €200 million, said he would create a charitable foundation, to which he plans to give tens of millions of euros. He also plans to donate some of his good fortune to hospitals. His 2020 win marked the biggest jackpot ever scooped by a player of the EuroMillions lottery with the previous record standing at 190 million euros, won a number of times, most recently in October 2019. “Seeing the happy people around me is the greatest reward. When the money falls from the sky, something must be done with it to help those who are not so lucky. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense,” the winner, who lives in the south of France, told connexionfrance.com. He also said he would buy his daughter a new car, and help “relatives in need,” but any travel plans would wait until after the pandemic has died down. It’s not the first time a French lottery winner has shared good fortune. In 2014, an anonymous man who landed a €72-M EuroMillions jackpot decided to give two-thirds of the loot (€50 million) to national charity groups, making him the only lottery winner in French history to donate so much. “The winner is single and doesn’t have any children. He believes strongly in generosity,” the Francaise des Jeux, which is the French branch of the transnational lottery, said of the mysterious benefactor. The French lottery tops the list of the easiest lotteries in the world to win big. “FranceLoto gives you a one in six chance of winning any of the prizes on offer, so why not grab your striped jumper and beret, and try your luck at the French lottery today?” Gushes eightieskids.com.

3) The jackpot: About C$280 million

The winner(s): Scottish couple Colin and Christine Weir

Getting lucky: It’s been famously said that money can’t buy happiness. If you’re looking for proof of that hoary maxim, consider the case of Colin Weir and his wife, Christine, from Largs, Ayrshire in Scotland, who became the U.K.’s biggest-ever Lotto winners when they claimed the huge EuroMillions £161-M jackpot back in 2011. Colin didn’t hesitate to go on a spending spree. “He forked out for cars, jewelry and property and pumped money into his favourite football club Partick Thistle, as well as donating massive amounts to good causes,” according to edinburghlive.com. “He also shared his fortune with friends and charitable trusts, and passed on money to his two children with Christine — Carly, 32, and Jamie, 30.” Tragically, Colin split from his wife of 38 years in summer 2019, then died at age 72 from sepsis later that year after an “acute kidney injury.” Notes the Daily Mirror newspaper: “His garage housed four luxury cars — a vintage Bentley Arnage, worth £10,000, a £28,250 three-year-old Jaguar F-Pace SUV, a £24,000 four-year-old Mercedes Benz E Class Estate and a 2019 Mercedes Benz V Class people carrier, valued at about £35,000.” At the time of his death, his fortune had shrunk by £40 million, but he was able to throw a reported million-pound bash for his closest friends — from beyond the grave. The Daily Record reported last year Colin laid on a luxury event for his closest pals at the five-star Trump Turnberry as a final parting gift. Guests feasted on lobster and the finest champagne at the private function. “Colin was certain before he died that he wanted to give his pals a great party to remember him by,” a close friend said. “So he booked out one of the biggest rooms at Trump Turnberry hotel and treated all of his friends to the biggest and grandest party any of us had ever seen. It was amazing.” The Weirs’ record win was eclipsed in 2019 when a single U.K. ticket-holder won the £170-M EuroMillions jackpot to become the country’s biggest-ever lottery winner.

2) The jackpot: C$70 million

The winner: Brampton, Ont. credit-risk manager Adlin Lewis

Getting lucky: It’s a question all of us would love to face — how do you break the news to your spouse that you’ve just won the largest lottery prize in Canadian history? That’s the situation Adlin Lewis, then a 49-year-old credit risk manager in Brampton, faced in January 2020 when he won a record-breaking $70-million Lotto Max lottery jackpot in the Greater Toronto Area. It was just one day after the draw that Lewis found out he’d in fact won, the same morning the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) put out an alert to say the winner’s identity was still outstanding. “While I was warming up my car, I scanned my ticket on the OLG Lottery App but I got an error message, so I tried again. And then I saw the words ‘Big Winner’ and the number 70!” Lewis said in a statement at the time. “I was shocked and wanted to confirm what I saw so I went online to see the winning numbers and one by one they matched!” Despite being $70 million richer, he went to work that day and pondered how to share the news with his wife. “I wanted to tell her in a special way — with a trip or something creative — but I couldn’t keep this news to myself,” he said. “I ended up waking her up in the wee hours of the morning… and just telling her outright.” The self-described “lucky guy” from Brampton said he had been playing the lottery for the last 25 years. “A couple of years ago I won a car, and then more recently, I won both the first and second prizes in a workplace holiday draw,” he said. “When my colleagues found out that the winning $70-million Lotto Max ticket was sold in Brampton, they were joking at the office: ‘Is Adlin here? Did Adlin call in sick today?’” After the historic win, he said he planned to make some major investments and find time to travel with his wife. “We have a lot of options now,” he said. “My wife has always wanted to try those VIP $100 slots in Las Vegas and now I can make that dream come true for her.” The odds of winning the main jackpot are about one in 33,294,800 per $5 play, the OLG says.

1) The jackpot:

US$1.586 billion (yes, BILLION)

The winner: John and Lisa Robinson held one of three winning tickets

Getting lucky: In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing John Robinson listened to his wife Lisa. It was back in January 2016 when Lisa asked her husband to pick up Powerball lottery tickets on his way home from work. John, who works at a maintenance distribution centre in Munford, Tenn., was tired but agreed to stop and buy four tickets at Naifeh’s Food Mart, a grocery store one block from their home, at 6:56 p.m. on a Wednesday night. The father of two said he bought the four tickets as he always does to represent the four members of their family, with the computer choosing the winning numbers of 04, 08, 19, 27, 34 and Powerball 10. “Actually I was on way home from work, and she had called me and said, ‘Are you going to stop and get a couple lottery tickets?” John told today.com at the time. “I really didn’t feel like stopping that night, but I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll stop.’ I came home, and I wasn’t feeling good, and I handed the tickets to her and said, ‘I’m going to go lay down.’” Lisa, who works in a dermatologist’s office, wrote the numbers down, watched the drawing and triple-checked the numbers before startling John awake at 4:30 a.m. with the big news. The chances of winning were 1 in 292.2 million, and there were 635,103,137 total tickets sold. The Robinsons held one of three winning tickets — the other two were in California and Florida — and their share of the prize was roughly US$533 million before taxes, or US$327.8 million if they choose the lump-sum payment. The family reached out to a friend for financial advice and was put in touch with Joe Townsend, an estate planning and tax attorney in Memphis who had the idea for them to reveal themselves on NBC’s Today Show. Lisa said she planned to continue working despite the life-changing winnings. “I’ll be there Monday,’’ she said after calling her supervisor to tell her to tune in to the show.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca