Maurice De Gennaro has played the lottery every week since 1976 and never won much more than the occasional free ticket. Today, the Toronto man is $60 million richer after hitting it big in a Lotto Max draw.

The semi-retired senior told reporters at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming offices in Toronto Friday, that he has no plans to buy any big houses or sports cars.

He’s not even sure if he’s going to quit his work as a mechanical designer. He had been planning to retire in October, but thinks he might move that up now.

The 67-year-old describes himself as a “very low-key person” and says, for now, he’s just trying to get over the shock of his win. But he’s planning to share his new-found wealth with his family and maybe do a little travelling.

De Gennaro said he always hoped what grew into a 40-year stretch of buying lottery tickets would pay off someday.

“I used to say, ‘Maybe this is it, maybe this is it.’ Like they would say on those commercials for Wintario: If you want to win, you got to play,” he said.

When De Gennaro did win, he had a hard time believing it.

Like he does most weeks, he checked his lottery numbers at the kitchen table the day after the big draw. He was stunned to find that every one of the winning numbers matched the numbers on his single Lotto Max ticket. Assuming he’d made a mistake, he double-checked the numbers. But he wasn’t wrong.

“Once I realized it was $60 million, I started shaking, I started sweating,” he said.

De Gennaro decided to tuck the ticket under the carpet to keep it safe. The next weekend, during an Easter celebration with his family, he pulled out a photocopy of the ticket and showed it to his nephew, Richard Touma, who checked the ticket several more times and confirmed it was correct.

“After that, we all just were sort of in shock. We couldn’t believe it. So then we had dinner, like it was any other Easter,” Touma said with a shrug.

De Gennaro loves to travel and hopes to return to Europe where he travelled two years ago. That tour had to be cut short when De Gennaro tripped on some stairs and broke his arm and leg.

On his next attempt, he says he will take his time, see the sights and enjoy it in leisure.