A health care worker from the Greater Sudbury community of Capreol says she is in no rush to spend her winnings after earning a $175,000 lottery prize.
Jennifer Del Papa is an occasional lottery player who bought her winning ticket while out on a walk with her son and dog, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. said in a Thursday news release.
“It was around Christmas time and I was enjoying the holidays with my family,” Del Papa is quoted as saying in the news release.
“While we were out, I decided to pick up a The Big Spin ticket. When we got back home, I played my ticket and realized I’d won a SPIN prize.”
The Big Spin is an instant lottery scratch ticket game that has a live component for top prize winners.
It is modelled after a game on a popular game show where contestants spin a wheel with various prize amounts.
Instant prizes of up to $100,000 can be won, but players who get to spin the big wheel at the Toronto prize centre have a chance to win up to $500,000.
She said she returned to the store with her son thinking she may have won $20.
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At the store, she watched an animated wheel spin on the lottery terminal screen. It then stopped on ‘Big Spin,’ meaning she would go on to physically spin the wheel in Toronto for one of the top prizes.
“When the lottery terminal froze, it was surreal and unbelievable,” Del Papa said.
“My son kept saying, ‘You won!’ but I couldn’t wrap my head around it.”
After she spun the big wheel March 25 in Toronto, it stopped on the $175,000 prize, just missing the $250,000 prize.
“I was so focused on how to spin the wheel that I don’t even know what I was feeling in that moment. I just knew I needed to grab that wheel and gun it,” she said.
“This experience has been so fun and exciting. The best part of the day was having my son and my husband here to cheer me on.”
Del Papa said she wants to put some thought into what to spend the money on, but that her family would celebrate the day with ice cream.
Her winning ticket was purchased at the Shell gas station on Regional Road 84 in Capreol.
