An Atlin, B.C. man was in Kamloops, B.C., Tuesday to verify that he is the winner of a lottery ticket worth more than $16 million.
The small community is about a two hour drive south of Whitehorse.
Steve Murphy, 52, is a mine manager at the Tulsequah Chief Mine, which is south of Atlin. He bought the winning ticket last week at the Food Basket store in Atlin.
He said he doesn't usually play the lottery, but he decided to last week when he saw how high the jackpot was.
"I checked one of those lottery terminal checkers... and all these numbers come up. I'm used to rejection," Murphy said with a laugh. "And it came up with all these numbers, so I knew something was up," he said.
Murphy passed the ticket to the woman behind the counter who checked and all the same winning numbers came up.
He said he doesn't have any plans in particular plans.
"Probably going to disappear for a couple weeks and, you know, think of what I'm going to do. It's a lot to take in right now," he said.
Murphy was born in Whitehorse and has been living in Atlin for about 30 years. He said he has a few projects he would like to help the community of Atlin with.
The Food Basket store’s operator, Corrine Johnson, said Murphy is a regular customer.
“He just comes in and asks me for his usual ticket, except this time it was a little better than his usual ticket. He won one third of the $50 million pot, and he validated it here and we’re all happy for him,” said Johnson.
BC Lottery Commission officials confirmed the win Tuesday afternoon.
There are no comments yet