New parents from northern Ontario win $70M Lotto Max draw with 1st-ever lottery ticket purchase

Shortly after becoming new parents, a couple from Iroquois Falls northeast of Timmins, Ont., became $70-million richer after winning the big prize in the Aug. 20 Lotto Max draw.

Kyle Murray told Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) he bought his first-ever lottery ticket after picking up his mom at the Timmins airport so she could meet her new grandchild. 

“I got the ticket and put it on the fridge and kind of forgot about it until the next morning when social media posts from a friend told us that someone in the area won,” he said.

Murray’s partner, Jennifer Stuart-Flynn, checked their ticket with the OLG app and got a notification it was a winning ticket.

“I took a big breath and I stopped. I closed the app, I reopened it and I did it again,” she said.

“Kyle was like, ‘What ? Did we win?’ I was like, ‘I think we might have.'”

Stuart-Flynn said the first thing she wants to do with the money is buy her sister a house.

“I love her, and she is the greatest person in the world, and she deserves it,” she said.

Stuart-Flynn told OLG she gets emotional thinking about how her children will never have to worry about money.

“I realize that my kids are going to have a way different life than I had growing up,” she said.

Murray said he wants to use some of the money to buy some land and build a little farm.

“You know, to set something up that the kids will want to come back to,” he said.

Murray said they’ve faced some struggles as a family the last few years.

“And everything we did was try to give them [their children] a better life, and nothing we did got us to the point that we’re on now.”