Two New Westminster men are set for life after winning the lottery of the same name last year.
Mark Prior and Daniel Flett both opted to take the $675,000 payout versus the $1,000 a week for 25 years after winning big in the scratch-and-win game.
Prior bought his ticket in Vancouver after an outing with his elderly father, who has since passed away. They had gone to Jericho Beach. On the drive home, Prior’s dad asked to him to pick up some strawberries.
The stop proved to be a sweet one.
When Prior was in the store, he remembered a friend who had won the Set for Life lottery and decided to buy a ticket for himself. But the store clerk said he didn’t have any. Prior was just about to walk out the door when the clerk called to him and said he had found a ticket, which proved to be the winner.
After he won, Prior’s dad said to him, “You always had your mother’s bloody luck.”
Prior, who is in his 60s, chose the payout versus the $1,000 for a week for 25 years. The Moody Park resident works as a set designer in the film business.
When Prior returned home after the win, he “kind of faked it a little bit,” but when he finally told the family about the big win they were, not surprisingly, ecstatic.
“My son jumped up and he was screaming and hooting around the yard,” Prior says, laughing.
Meanwhile, winner Daniel Flett, 76, a New West resident for 14 years, also bought his ticket in Vancouver. He picked it up at a pharmacy and brought it home.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Flett says, describing his surprised reaction after he scratched and saw he had a winning ticket. “I had to sit down and walk away and look again.”
Flett went for the payout because he would be 101 by the time he got the $1,000 a week for 25 years.
The retiree has just one family member – an 86-tear-old sister in Kamloops – to share the money with.
“I’ve given more money out than I have spent on myself,” he says.
His one splurge, Flett says, was to buy a $1,000 mattress set.
