‘I told you it wasn’t a dream’: Ontario couple retires after winning $55-million Lotto Max jackpot

When the $55-million Lotto Max jackpot they won was finally deposited in their bank account, Laurene Shail and Doltan Hawk couldn’t help but be overcome by emotions and hug each other.

“It’s in my bank. I told you it wasn’t a dream,” Doltan tells his wife Laurene as she cries on his shoulder after looking at their account on their phone during their visit to the OLG office to claim their prize.

Laurene Shail and Doltan Hawk hold the $55 million Lotto Max jackpot cheque they won. (OLG)

On Friday, the Crown corporation shared a video of the winner’s celebration, unboxing the $55 million cheque to the Milton couple who have been playing the lottery regularly for the past 25 years.

After winning, the couple announced they were “officially retired.”

“This has been something I never ever thought that we would be able to experience to have the luck that we had and to be able to share it with the kids,” Laurene said in the video.

“I know they say money can change a person, but I hope I never ever change because this is me, and that is Doltan, and we’re just regular people.”

On June 14, Doltan said he stopped at a store to buy a lottery ticket, which he usually does before going home. The next morning, when he checked the ticket on the OLG app, he remembered seeing “five, five and zero” and the word “jackpot.”

“Then it didn’t do nothing and then I started yelling at her to come out,” he said.

Laurene recalled having one foot in the shower when she heard her husband’s yell. She saw him shaking from head to toe. Doltan then asked her to check the ticket on her app.

When she saw $55 million, she initially thought it was a prank.

“My mouth got so dry. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I’m trying to be calm, and it was just unbelievable, like I’m like this is really happening,” she said.

The couple then went to the store to validate their ticket and remembered the lottery terminal being frozen and the clerk shaking. According to OLG, the ticket was bought at Convenience 4 U on Wilson Drive in Milton.

“Next thing we knew, OLG was calling to talk to us. It was then that reality set in. We had the winning ticket,” Doltan said.

The couple said they then got coffee and went to Laurene’s mom.

“I walked in, I said guess what we’re doing today? She says, what? And I said we’re going to go buy a house. My mom looks at me and goes, yeah, really? And I said, no, we really are,” Laurene recounted. “And that’s when I said to mom, I said the kids are all going to be looked after.”

Laurene Shail cries and comforted by her husband Doltan Hawk after claiming their Lotto Max win. (OLG)

In addition to buying a house, Laurene plans to travel to Italy and Australia someday while her husband, she jokingly said, will be on some lake with his boat, fishing.

But what the couple is looking forward to the most is having all their children and grandchildren together.

“Our plan is for Christmas to have all the kids and the grandkids home at the same time,” said Lauren, who got choked up.

The OLG said it has paid out a combined $256 million in Lotto Max jackpot winnings since April.