The owner of Red Deer’s two top-ranking lottery outlets found out on Thursday that her No. 1 store was the source of yet another big winner.
Earlier this month, the Western Canada Lottery Corp. announced that a couple from Red Deer had won $3.3 million in the New Year’s Day Lotto 6/49 draw. Carol and Ian Callan purchased their ticket at Shefield & Sons in the Parkland Mall, a sister store to the lottery booth in the Bower Place Shopping Centre.
Then, on Thursday, store owner Yasmin Teja learned that a ticket purchased from Shefield & Sons netted $100,000 on the EXTRA.
Catherine Burbridge and 17 co-workers at a local gift shop included the EXTRA in a lottery ticket they purchased at the Parkland Mall store on Nov. 24.
The win was not announced until this week because some members of the group had been away, Burbridge told staff at WCLC.
“Everyone in the group was pretty happy,” Burbridge told WCLC representatives.
The win doesn’t add any cash to Teja’s coffers but it’s still a big win for the store, too, because it brings more people in.
“My God, my store is going to be the talk of the town,” said Teja.
“We have a picture of that lady millionaire in our store. She just told me that she and her husband would come and see me. We have not seen her yet, but give her time,” she said.
Shefield & Sons has sold three big winners in the six years since Teja purchased the store, including a $100,000 winner that went to an Olymel employee about four years ago.
Teja distinctly remembers encouraging that winner to purchase the EXTRA, something she always does when people come in to buy their tickets.
Andrea Marantz, a Winnipeg-based spokeswoman for the WCLC, said people flock to stores that have sold big winners, even though the odds of winning do not change regardless of where they buy their tickets.
Shefield & Sons is a high-volume seller, so that increases the likelihood that it will sell a winner, said Marantz. The odds of selling a big winner don’t change, but it is “interesting” that the store sold two big winners in a short period, she said.
Burbridge’s winning numbers could have been drawn from any store within the WCLC’s territory because they were generated online, said Marantz.
Odds of winning the $100,000 EXTRA prize are one in 1.2 million, she said. Odds of winning the top EXTRA prize of $250,000 are one in six million.
She added that while the odds of winning are extremely low, there’s no chance of winning if you don’t buy a ticket.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com