After playing the same lottery numbers since the 1980s, Lana and Joery Leung’s perseverance finally paid off this month with a massive $ 6 million jackpot.
The couple in Burnaby, BC, said they used their lucky numbers – a combination of family birthdays – for 36 years before matching all six numbers in the March 16 draw in Lotto 6/49.
“It’s just incredible,” Lana said at a news conference Tuesday. “There is hope out there.”
Lana said their son was the first to get a clue about their big win after hearing the ticket had been sold in Vancouver and recognizing their birthday numbers. He texted Joery to make sure he had bought a ticket that week, then hurried to see him in person as he did not respond.
“My husband thought he was playing a joke with him,” Lana added.
Surely Joery had picked up a ticket – at the aptly named Lucky Mart at Nanaimo and East 7th Avenue.
The Leungs said they plan to continue working for now, but intend to use their newfound fortune to retire early. Lana also expects to leave one of her two jobs before then.
“Our goal is just to be happy now, share with our family, take them to dinners and stuff like that,” she said.
They also plan to pay off their daughter’s mortgage and buy their son a car.
The Leungs told BC Lottery Corporation that they had planned to move out of their modest home to something nicer, but that they might have to keep going.
“We can not move now because this is the house we won the Lotto 6/49 jackpot in,” they said in a BCLC news release.
Just a week before Leungs’ victory, another BC family took home a life-changing 6/49 Lotto jackpot. John and Travis Bonner, an uncle-nephew duo from Fraser Valley, won $ 8 million in the March 9 draw.
But the odds of taking home a jackpot prize are endless. Players have a chance at one out of 13,983,816 to match each number, not including the bonus, on a 6/49 ticket, according to BCLC.