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 .
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.
