After playing the same lottery numbers since the 1980s, Lana and Joery Leung’s persistence finally paid off this month with a massive $6-million jackpot.
The Burnaby, BC, couple said they used their lucky numbers – a combination of family birthdays – for 36 years before matching all six numbers in the March 16 Lotto 6/49 draw.
“It’s just unbelievable,” Lana said at a news conference Tuesday. “There’s hope out there.”
Lana said their son was the first to clue into their big win, after hearing the ticket had been sold in Vancouver and recognizing their birthday numbers. He texted Joery to make sure he’d purchased a ticket that week, and then rushed to see him in person when he didn’t respond.
“My husband thought that he was playing a joke on him,” Lana added.
Sure enough, Joery had picked up a ticket – at the appropriately named Lucky Mart at Nanaimo and East 7th Avenue.
The Leungs said they’re planning to continue working for now, but intend to use their newfound fortune to retire early. Lana is also expecting to leave one of her two jobs from her before that.
“Our goal is just to be happy for now, share with our family, take them for dinners and stuff,” she said.
They also plan to pay off their daughter’s mortgage and buy their son a car.
The Leungs told the BC Lottery Corporation they had been planning to move out of their modest home into something nicer, but that they might have to stick around.
“We can’t move now, because this is the house that we won the Lotto 6/49 jackpot in,” they said in a BCLC news release.
Just one week before the Leungs’ win, another BC family took home a life-changing Lotto 6/49 jackpot. John and Travis Bonner, an uncle-nephew duo from the Fraser Valley, won $8 million in the March 9 draw.
But the odds of taking home a jackpot prize are infinitesimal. Players have a one in 13,983,816 chance of matching every number, not including the bonus, on a 6/49 ticket, according to the BCLC.