Patrick Stoetzner Hale is now $675,000 richer.
He was talking to his friend while at home and decided to check his Set for Life scratch ticket online to see if he'd won a prize.
Turns out, he won the maximum prize while playing the provincewide jackpot.
"I was in shock. But super excited to tell my best friend from way back," he explained in a release today (Aug. 31) from the BC Lottery Corporation (BCLC).
"Winning just feels unreal. A lot of things seemed out of reach before that aren’t anymore, which is cool.”
Hale plans to buy a car and some real estate with the money.
He bought the ticket at Burnaby's Mountain Village Market on Cinnamon Drive.
Another Burnaby man became millionaire after Ontario trip
Hale is also the second known major lottery winner from Burnaby this month, as of this publication.
While at a union conference in Toronto, Troy Maulding bought what ended up being a $6-million ticket from the Lotto 6/49 draw on Aug. 6.
The 55-year-old bought the ticket while getting some band-aids for a friend.
"I was having some quiet time in my hotel room when I checked my tickets. The numbers I normally play didn’t win," he said.
"Then I started matching the numbers from my Quick Pick. I had to double-check what I was seeing."
Maulding said he's no stranger to the lottery, having played regular numbers since he was 19.
He plans to buy a home with his new earnings once he retires from work.
