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Winning lottery ticket was purchased in Sooke

It’s only been a day, but no winner has come forward yet
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Nanaimo’s Dale Euerby won a $1 million 6/49 prize last weekend, but a second ticket sold in Sooke has, as yet, been presented to the BC Lotteries Commision. (BCLC)

On Saturday, Jan. 12, one lucky lottery ticket holder who might live in Sooke managed to realize the dream of winning big on a lottery ticket.

That ticket was purchased in Sooke, and it’s possible that someone who lives or works here is now in possession of a million dollar ticket.

Another ticket, this time in Nanaimo, netted a very happy resident, Dale Euerby, $1 million in the same draw.

He hopes to use at least some of that money to reclaim a bit of his youth by hunting down a vintage Corvette, a car he once owned and loved.

But we still don’t know what the dreams of the Sooke winner might be since, according to the BC Lottery Commission, no one has yet stepped forward to collect the prize.

“It’s not unusual for there to be a bit of a delay in claiming a prize,” said BCLC spokesperson, Evan Kelly.

“Of course, the draw was just made Saturday, so the winner could be coming in as we speak. It’s hard to tell.”

The winning ticket that was sold in Sooke for the Jan.12 draw was one of the 101 guaranteed prizes in the SuperDraw in which there were 100 x $10,000 guaranteed prizes plus the as yet unclaimed $1 million guaranteed prize.

The lucky ticket holder will have a full year to claim their prize, although it’s very rare that someone would take that long to come forward.

Kelly noted that although most unclaimed prizes are for small amounts, there have been some instances where larger prizes remain unclaimed. In the past 10 years, there have now been ten major prizes that have gone unclaimed for a total of $6.2 million.

The most recent of these tickets expired on Jan. 3 of this year.

BCLC reports that they have awarded a total of $686 million to lottery winners in B.C. from April 2017 to March 2018.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should all run out to buy a ticket.

According to GameSense.com, the odds of winning 6/49 are 1 in 13,983,816.

In comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning are less than one in a million, and the chances of being the victim of a shark attack are just about one in 11.5 million.