A miner from Elko knew he was having a lucky day, but didn’t know how lucky it was until he checked his lottery ticket and found out he had won a million dollars.
Gary Dixon, 48, won the money in Friday’s 7 p.m. Lotto Max lottery draw after buying his tickets from the Fernie Stop’n’Shop just a few hours earlier.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” he told The Free Press, from the winners’ room at the British Columbia Lottery Corporation head office in Kamloops on Monday.
“But I’ll feel even better when they give me the cheque and I can get out of here!”
Dixon bought the lottery ticket on Friday, then went to work a night shift at Coal Mountain, near Sparwood, where he works in pit utility.
“On Saturday people kept telling me someone in Fernie had won a million. Everyone was talking about it. “Then on my way to work I saw a $5 bill in a puddle, and I thought, ‘this is my lucky day!’
“Finally I went to Stop’n’Shop and checked my three tickets on Sunday morning. With the first one I won a dollar, and then I asked the woman if anyone had won the million yet. She said no. So then I checked the second ticket and I won a million! After high-fiving the woman I checked my third ticket and had won a free draw.
“It was definitely a lucky day!”
Dixon won the money in a Lotto Max Maxmillion draw.
Maxmillions are additional one million dollar prizes that are drawn when the Lotto Max jackpot reaches $50 million.
Dixon, his wife Susan and two kids aged 22 and 19 won’t be seeing any major life changes though. Dixon says he has no plans for any extravagant purchases.
“I’ll probably pay off the bills, give Susan’s parents and my parents $50,000 each, pay for the kids’ things, maybe buy a new truck then put the rest in the bank,” he said. “We’ll just carry on as normal.”