OLG POKER LOTTO hand-created Christmas magic and financed a reno for Richard Sheppard – National Post

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It took weeks for him to check his tickets but is he ever glad he did

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Richard Sheppard, 47, is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran who likes to spend Friday nights in Elmira, Ont. playing a few lines of OLGs Watch N Win POKER LOTTO game and later smoking a fine cigar with his buddies. On one of those evenings in November 2018, he didnt collect an instant win prize but he still had a chance to win up to $100,000 on the nightly draw.

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That night I dropped all of the tickets on the nightstand when I got home, he recalls. The next morning at 4 a.m., we were flying out to the Dominican for a vacation, so I didnt check them. We were gone for a week and after I got home they sat there for another two weeks.

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With Christmas approaching, Sheppard was heading out to buy a Christmas gift for his fiance when he decided to check his lottery tickets, to see if he had any winners.

At the mall, I ran them through the ticket checker and won some Free Plays, but when I got to the POKER LOTTO tickets, one of them came up as a Big Winner, he recalls. I thought it said $1,000 and my first thought was right on. But when I looked at the screen again, I noticed the extra zeroes, which meant I had matched all five cards in the draw and that this was a $100,000 prize ticket.

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I thought it said $1,000 and my first thought was right on, Sheppard says. But when I looked at the screen again, I noticed the extra zeroes.

Sheppard took photos of the ticket and ticket checker screen with his phone and sent them to his brother. He then drove to see his fiance at her office a few minutes away and asked her to scan the ticket on her phone with the OLG Lottery App.

When she heard the winning music she screamed out loud that it was a $100,000 prize, Sheppard says. Everybody in the office heard her and they got excited, too. The next night we booked a hotel in Toronto so we could visit the OLG Prize Centre the following morning. By noon, I left with a massive cheque to deposit.

The bank tellers in Elmira joked that he must have won the lottery. He admitted that he actually had won the lottery and inspired some additional excitement at the branch.

Sheppard volunteers each year to play Santa Claus on board the Polar Express, a train ride event along the Waterloo Central Railway. He also played a very generous Santa at his household that year.

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Christmas was amazing, he says. I have two kids and my fiance has two, and there were great presents all around for them and their girlfriends. I also paid off all my bills. Other than my mortgage, I was debt-free.

Sheppard also had a 10-year plan for renovating his house that was quickly accelerated to mere months.

I installed a hot tub, replaced all major appliances, and put a new floor and granite countertops in the kitchen, he says. My fiance and I spent a week in Orlando, and I still had money left over to put into savings.

Sheppard still maintains the tradition of playing OLGs POKER LOTTO Watch N Win game on Friday nights.

The big prize can be won by anyone, he says.

This story was created by Content Works, Postmedias commercial content division, on behalf of OLG.

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OLG POKER LOTTO hand-created Christmas magic and financed a reno for Richard Sheppard - National Post