After nearly 35 years of buying lottery tickets, Marc Lachance has lived up to his name.
The lucky Gatineau resident won $25 million dollars in Saturday's Loto 6/49 drawand is splitting it with his three siblings.It looks like lady luck was smiling on Gatineau this past Saturday.Not only did the Lachance family scoop up the big win but another Gatineau couple claimed the million dollar guaranteed prize.
The Lachance siblings grew up together, shared their lives together and now, they'll share a $25 million dollar jackpot, thanks to brother Marc Lachance who bought the winning ticket.
“When I see I won,” Lachance said at a news conference in Gatineau Wednesday, “I say “Oh, my brothers and sisters will be happy.”
And happy they are; 55-year-old Alain, 52-year-old Christine, 54-year-old Marc and 48-year-old Christine. But, Christine adds, they are all in a bit of shock as well.
“It's very overwhelming. We just sit and think, “no that's not true, we didn't win that much money.”
The siblings live in different parts of Quebec. Marc is currently unemployed and lives in Gatineau, caring for his elderly mother.
For him, sharing the win was a no-brainer.
“Since the first time I bought the tickets,” he says, “I said if I win I will share with my siblings, always.”
So just how lucky is the Lachance family? According to Loto 6/49, the odds of winning this prize of $25-million is 1 in 13,983, 816.
This wasn't the only lottery win in Gatineau Saturday. Louis Laroche and Stephanie Boucher Lacroix won a cool million in the Guaranteed Prize Draw, a day after Louis Laroche dislocated his shoulder in a work accident. Laroche says they were heading to his parent’s house Saturday for dinner and stopped by a dépanneur to pick up some chocolate and decided to buy a lottery ticket because they needed a bit of luck.
“On Sunday morning,” Boucher Lacroix explains, “I asked him to look at the ticket. I heard him fall on his knees and yell, “We won the million dollars. We won.” Boucher Lacroix says they hopped in their car in their pajamas to verify the win.
Patrice Lavoie, the Corporate Director of Public Affairs with Loto-Québec says it’s quite unusual to have two wins in one area.
“It's really special. That doesn't happen very often so the people in Gatineau are really lucky these days.”
With a name like Lachance, you don’t have to tell the four siblings that.
“We've been lucky this time for sure,” says Christine Lachance.
The ticket was bought at a Couche-Tard in Gatineau. The retailer will receive a one percent prize; that's a quarter of a million dollars.
