Video surveillance footage and credit card statements were needed to identify a 55-year-old Hamilton woman as the owner a $50-million-winning lottery ticket purchased in Cambridge last year.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. says Kathryn Jones, who works in Cambridge as an engineer, purchased the winning ticket for the Nov. 30, 2012, draw at a Shoppers Drug Mart on Dundas Street.
“As you can imagine, this has been a very weird and wonderful journey,” Jones said at a Tuesday morning news conference in Toronto.
“I feel almost as though I’ve been struck by lightning twice – to win is pretty incredible, but to lose a ticket and then have OLG find me … is also pretty incredible.”
Although Jones lost the ticket, she was able to produce a credit card statement showing that she bought a $16 ticket at the time the winning ticket was sold.
OLG says the winning ticket was the only $16 ticket purchased at that Shoppers Drug Mart on that day, and they had even more evidence suggesting Jones was the winner.
“We have store security video that clearly shows Ms. Jones purchasing the winning ticket,” OLG president Rod Phillips said at the news conference.
Investigators from the OLG looked into nearly 450 cases of people suspecting the winning ticket may have been theirs.
Jones’ claim was further complicated by her sister working as a clerk at a convenience store in Ottawa, which triggered an additional review of the claim.
At the Shoppers Drug Mart where the ticket was purchased, manager Jennifer Peixoto tells CTV News she saw an influx in lottery-playing customers after Jones’ name became public – possibly in part because the Lotto Max jackpot is again up to $50 million for this Friday.
“We’re actually selling tons of lottery tickets today because of it,” she says.
“It’s almost like they want to re-enact it themselves.”
Peixoto says the largest jackpot that had been won at the store previously was several years ago, when a customer won $50,000.
Jones says she’s not sure what happened to the ticket, but believes she may have been distracted by the business of the Christmas season and forgotten about it.
OLG is holding Jones’ jackpot for 30 days in case additional claims come forward – something that’s probably OK with Jones, who says she hasn’t decided what she’s going to do with the money.