Writer
Losing the lottery is the easiest thing you can do. It requires no effort or planning. Just buy a ticket, wait for the numbers to be called or the symbols to be revealed, and boom, you are not a winner.
The odds of winning the lottery are so astronomically low that some people have played for decades or spent tens of thousands of dollars on tickets, and their biggest prize was a few dollars or a free play.
But while some players will buy dozens of tickets a week and have nothing to show for it, every once in a while, someone will buy their first lottery ticket ever and win big with it.
These are the astonishing true stories of rookie lottery players who won jackpots with their first-ever tickets.
Juliette Lamour - $34 million
Turning eighteen is an exciting time in any young person's life. You're legally considered an adult, and depending on where you live, you will receive a wide variety of new rights and privileges, from opening a bank account to voting for President.
Juliette Lamour of Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, had just turned eighteen in January 2023 when her grandfather suggested she celebrate her birthday by trying something new. "My grandfather suggested I buy a lottery ticket for fun," she told reporters.
Lamour thought it could be a good way to celebrate her milestone birthday, but she was so inexperienced that she had no idea how to play any of the games. When it was her turn at the counter, she said she "wasn't sure what to ask for."
After asking some questions, she settled on a ticket for the draw game LOTTO 6/49. Afterward, she went out to celebrate her birthday and promptly forgot all about the ticket until later that week when she heard that the winning ticket was sold in her city.
When she heard the news, she was busy at work and asked a coworker to check her numbers. She recalled:
My colleague fell to his knees in disbelief. He was yelling, in fact, everyone was yelling that I won $48 million! I didn't understand what was going on at first. I couldn't process this news. We kind of made a scene in the store that day!
Obviously, becoming an instant multi-millionaire when you're still a teenager is a pretty big deal, and Lamour's manager asked her if she wanted to take the rest of her shift off, but she says her mom told her that she should stay and finish out the day.
Lamour says the most significant benefit of winning her prize is how it will help her achieve her dream of becoming a doctor.
"I wanted to go to medical school before winning the lottery. Now I can pursue this dream without worrying about grants or loans."
However, like any eighteen-year-old, she'd like to have just a little fun with the money as well, and she plans to take her family on a dream vacation. The teen added:
Once school is done, my family and I will pick a continent and start exploring. I am not a 'sit on the beach' type of person. I want to experience different countries, study their history and culture, try their food, and listen to their language.
While managing a fortune of this size can be daunting for someone so young, she's fortunate that her father is a financial planner and can help her invest her new wealth.
Kyle Murray & Jennifer Stuart-Flynn - $49.8 million
Beginners' luck must run strong in Canada because just a year after Juliette Lamour claimed her big prize, Ontario resident Kyle Murray scored an even bigger win with his first-ever lottery ticket.
Murray and his partner, Jennifer Stuart-Flynn, had just brought home their first baby when she suggested he purchase a lottery ticket because the jackpot was $70 million (CAD).
Murray thought it was worth a shot, and while waiting near the Timmins airport to pick up his mother, he saw a store selling Lotto Max tickets and decided to buy one. When he got home, he stuck it on his fridge and forgot about it.
Shortly after the drawing, Stuart-Flynn saw that the winning ticket had been sold in the Timiskaming/Cochrane region.
“I was sitting at my table having cereal, scrolling through Facebook like everyone else, when my friend said, 'Hey, check the tickets — the winner is in our area,'” she said.
She opened the lottery app on her phone, scanned the ticket on the fridge, and received a winner's notification. She said:
I heard the 'Winner/Gagnant' win tone. I was in shock and not processing what was happening, so I shut down the OLG App and reopened it. I checked the ticket again and heard the same thing. That's when I called out to Kyle!
Murray ran into the room and couldn't believe what he saw on Stuart-Flynn's phone. “I looked at her phone and read '$70 million winner,' but I was trying to figure out if it was displaying the maximum prize or if we actually won $70 million. I felt light-headed, and that sensation ran through my whole body!”
The new parents added that the best part of winning such a big prize was the future; it would allow them to provide for their family.
Stuart-Flynn said, “I realize my kids are going to have a much better life than I had, and that makes me the most emotional. They are set and won't have to wonder or worry about anything anymore.”
Lisa Quam - $90 million
Since Powerball first launched in 1992, there have been just under 5,000 total drawings and well over one billion tickets sold. In all those decades of drawings and sales, no one has ever had better beginners' luck than Lisa Quam of Washington State.
In 2014, Quam was living a typical suburban life in Olympia, Washington, with her husband of 32 years, Everett. She had never played Powerball before but decided on a whim to buy a ticket for a drawing with a $90 million jackpot while making a grocery run on Thanksgiving day. She picked up her ticket at a Haggen store in Auburn and chose the numbers 25, 30, 32, 46, 54, and 26.
She posted the tickets on her fridge so she wouldn't lose them but waited until Sunday to finally check her numbers. She couldn't believe her eyes when she saw that her numbers were winners and she had just won $90 million.
"I yelled to my family, 'Get up here!' They all thought I was mad and angry about something," she said in a statement through the lottery. "My daughter asked, 'Is this an emergency?' and I said, 'Yes!'"
Not only was Quam a winner on her first ticket, but she was also the first Washington State player ever to win a Powerball jackpot since the game was first offered there in 2010. Her odds of winning the top prize with just one ticket were 1 in 175,000,000.
Quan had spent 32 years working at Boeing as a sourcing specialist for the airplane manufacturer, but after learning she was a winner, her first order of business was to quit her job politely, of course.
At a news conference to announce her as the winner, she stated:
I sent out an email to my coworkers and friends at work this morning and told them what a pleasure it was to work with them and to check the news today, and they'll come to an understanding of why I am writing this note.
However, while Quan is understandably excited about the potential of her new fortune, she hasn't let the money go to her head entirely.
"We have student loans just like every family, house repairs. Maybe we'll buy a house for one of the kids." She also mentioned that she and Everett plan to buy their first smartphones together.
When asked which new car she planned on buying with her winnings, her answer was a Subaru Forrester, with a starting price of $29,000.
Let's hope she at least upgrades to the leather interior and power windows.
Anonymous - $500,000
They say that curiosity killed the cat, but they never mention that it could also make him rich. One young lottery player from Livingston County, Michigan, wanted to experience the lottery after seeing his family members buy their own tickets, so he stopped by a Fast Lane convenience store in Saginaw and bought a Wild Side instant win ticket.
He told Michigan Lottery officials:
I had never played the lottery before, but I've seen my mom purchase tickets now and again, so I decided to buy one while I was at the store. I didn't know how to play the game, so I took the ticket home and had my parents walk me through it.
While his parents expected that he'd experience the disappointment familiar to almost every lottery player, they were shocked when they saw that he had won a major prize.
“When we revealed the $500,000 prize, we didn't think it was real,” he told lottery officials. The man and his parents traveled to the state lottery office in Saginaw on his twenty-first birthday to verify the win.
“When they confirmed it really was a $500,000 winner, we were in disbelief. I knew right then that this money was about to change my life,”
The young man says that he plans to use the money to pay for his education, study abroad, and save for his future.
Katelynne Berland - $50,000
Sometimes, when you do good deeds for others, you benefit yourself. Katelynne Berland of Virginia learned that when she went to buy her mother some lottery tickets from the 7-11 in Yorktown.
While purchasing the tickets, Berland decided that today would be her lucky day, and for the first time in her life, she bought a lottery ticket for herself. She chose a ticket for the Virginia Lottery's Pick 5 game, which holds drawings twice daily.
The game requires players to select five numbers. For a fifty-cent ticket, they must guess the numbers in the exact order they're drawn, but they can be chosen in any order for a dollar ticket.
Berland threw two quarters on the counter and selected the numbers 2-9-4-2-3 in that order. To her shock, those numbers were the exact order numbers selected for the April 14, 2024 drawing, and her fifty-cent ticket was now worth $50,000.
Berland says she plans to use some money to help pay for her sister's college tuition.
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