SYDNEY, N.S. — What do Glace Bay and Atlantic Lottery’s Set for Life Scratch n' Win tickets have in common?
Two winners in less than a month.
Wayne Gallant became the latest to scratch his way to a Set for Life top prize, just weeks after another Glace Bay resident, schoolteacher Cindy MacDonald, earned her win, according to an Atlantic Lottery news release.
For Gallant and his wife, Lois, the victory happened innocently enough; a quick trip out to pick up some items for supper. While shopping at the Sydney Port Access Road Walmart, Gallant decided to stop in to the CNIB Lottery Centre to buy a few Scratch n' Win tickets before heading home.
“As I walked into the store, the lottery booth was just opening but there (were) a few guys ahead of us, so I waited until we were on the way out,” he said in the release. “Later on, I thought I’d scratch the tickets and I told Lois I had two Set For Lifes already.”
Lois Gallant initially didn’t think there would be any chance of the couple basking in the glow of a big lottery payout.
“When he was scratching the ticket, I was thinking, ‘There’s no way we are winning Set for Life because Cindy just won it here,” she said in the release, “and the chances of winning two Set for Life in the same town is unheard of, I think.
“She just lives up the road from us."
But when Wayne Gallant scratched the tickets and saw that he was a winner, he couldn’t wait to let his wife know.
“It was crazy,” Lois Gallant said in the release.
The lottery corporation offers two options for Set for Life’s top prize: Winners can either choose to receive $1,000 a week for 25 years, or go with a lump sum payment of $675,000.
The Gallants opted for the latter.
Coincidentally, MacDonald made the same choice following her win, the release said.
The Gallants say they plan to invest some of their winnings, the release said. And whenever the pandemic ends and safe enough to travel, the couple added they would like to head overseas for a vacation in Greece, plan a trip to Montreal to catch some hockey games and hope to buy a cottage in Cape Breton with a waterfront view.