First ticket purchase ever leads to $70 million lottery win in Ontario

Days after welcoming a new baby, an Ontario couple hit a lottery jackpot, taking home $70 million.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) announced in a news release Monday that Jennifer Stuart-Flynn, 33, and Kyle Murray, 39, won the Aug. 20 Lotto Max jackpot after Murray purchased his first-ever Canadian lottery ticket.

The winning ticket was bought after the couple had just returned to their home in Iroquois Falls from Toronto after Stuart-Flynn delivered their baby following a high-risk pregnancy, the OLG said.

Murray was at the Timmins airport waiting to pick up his mother who was coming to help with the newborn when Stuart-Flynn texted him and asked him to buy a Lotto Max ticket.

Stuart-Flynn had seen online that the jackpot was $70 million.

Murray, who is from the United States, had never bought a lottery ticket in Canada before, the OLG said, despite having lived and worked in Canada for several years.

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He went to a gas station and asked the clerk for some help. He walked away with his first-ever Lotto Max and 6/49 quick pick tickets.

When Murray got home with his mother, he placed the tickets on the fridge so that they wouldn’t forget to check them.

Stuart-Flynn later heard that the winning ticket was sold in their area and decided to check their quick pick.

“I scanned the ticket on the OLG App and heard the ‘winner/gagnant’ win tone,” she said in the release.

“I was in shock and not processing what was happening, so I shut down the OLG app and reopened it. I checked the ticket again and heard the same thing. That’s when I called out to Kyle.”

Murray was working from home for his job in the financial technology industry.

“I thought I heard ‘winner/gagnant’ coming from Jennifer’s phone in the kitchen, but I wasn’t completely focused on what she was saying until she yelled ‘I think we won'” Murray recounted.

“I looked at her phone and read ‘$70 million winner,’ but I was trying to figure out if it was displaying the maximum prize or if we actually won $70 million. I felt light-headed and that sensation ran through my whole body.”

Courtesy: Handout / OLG

The first person to hear the news was Murray’s mother. The couple, Murray’s mother and their kids went out for a quiet celebration at a restaurant.

“We wanted to shout the news, but we knew that in our small town, this type of news would travel very fast,” Stuart-Flynn said.

“We had to be careful not to spill the beans throughout the entire dinner.”

But now the news is out and the couple said they’re “carefully considering” what to do with the windfall.

Among their plans, Stuart-Flynn said she will buy her sister a new house.

The couple also wants to ensure their children are well taken care of.

“We want to buy some land to set up a little farm with chickens and a highland cow. We hope it will be a place where the kids can have fun and will want to return to as they get older,” Murray said.

“The last few years have been a struggle, and everything we did was to make a better life for the kids,” Stuart-Flynn added.

“I realize my kids are going to have a much better life than I had and that makes me the most emotional. They are set and won’t have to wonder or worry about anything anymore.”

The winning ticket was purchased at an Esso on Algonquin Boulevard in Timmins, the OLG said.

It marks the sixth Lotto Max jackpot win in a row in Ontario.

Meanwhile, the Lotto Max jackpot for Tuesday’s draw (Sept. 17) stands at a record $80 million.