Steve Hillier has hit the jackpot. Twice.
One of the new faces to London city council discovered he won a $1-million lottery, days before he won the councillor race in Ward 14.
OLG says the winning ticket in the Lotto MAX draw Oct. 19 was purchased at the Petro Canada on Wellington Road in London.
Hillier defeated incumbent Jared Zaifman in London’s election on Oct. 22, though the results weren’t announced until Tuesday.
Speaking on 980 CFPL’s London Live on Thursday, Hillier said he became aware of his win on Sunday after arriving home from a day of putting up signs and talking to residents in ward 14.
“I came home and I was starting to get caught up with my emails, I looked at the shelf and went ‘oh, I should check those,'” Hillier said, referring to the tickets, noting he had recently downloaded the OLG’s smartphone app.
“I checked the first three tickets and nothing. Then I checked the last ticket and there’s all the music, and it says ‘$1 million.’ So I went ‘oh, cool! Is that right?'”
Hillier said after closing and reopening the app only to find the same ‘$1 million’ message staring back at him, he walked out of his office in shock and told his son to get his brother and mother. “He yells, ‘Dad’s having a heart attack!’ So they come down, and I go ‘no, but go on the OLG site, we need to check these numbers.'”
“We pulled the numbers up and there they are,” he said. Hillier drove to a store in Byron to check his ticket at an OLG kiosk. There, he says the machine spit out a long list of next steps, which included keeping the win a secret until they drove to Toronto to collect the cheque.
It wasn’t until Wednesday that Hillier says he and his wife had the time to drive to the OLG office and collect their winnings.
On Thursday, Hillier says he paid off his house.
“I wish I could have parlayed it into a bet in Vegas, I can’t imagine how well I would have done on it,” he said. “The odds of winning both of them? And they say good news comes in threes. I’m very curious what the third one’s going to be!”
Asked which win was better, Hillier replied the election, “because the election was a lot more work.”
“Let’s be realistic, I’ve been pounding the doors for a long time, talking to everyone, and the lottery is just luck.”
Hillier said the lotto win means he won’t need an outside job, and can instead focus on being a full-time councillor.
“I can concentrate on ward 14, and helping my ward, which is wonderful,” he said. “I don’t have to do anything else, I can be a full-time councillor and I can help.”
With files from Matthew Trevithick and Jacquelyn LeBel.
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