A St. Albert couple is a million dollars richer this week after winning the lottery.
Janett and Michael Natyshen of St. Albert were announced as the winners of the Western 6/49 lottery this week. The prize was $1,003,000.
The couple declined interview requests, but according to a press release they matched all six numbers for the Jan. 20 draw to claim the top prize.
“We like to buy tickets for every draw,” Michael said in the release. The winning ticket was bought for $8 from the south-side Superstore. He was on his computer on the night of the draw and soon learned he had matched all six main numbers on his seven-number ticket. “I called Janett to come over and take a look. She just kept asking me, ‘Are you sure?’”
Michael said the realization that he won sent his heart racing. “We both had a restless night.”
The couple plan to pay off their mortgage with the winnings, and will seek advice on what to do with the rest.
The Western 6/49 lottery is open to Canadians who live east of Ontario or in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, says company spokesperson Andrea Marantz. It has a top prize of about $1 million, and you have 1 in 6,991,908 chance to win it.
The Gazette estimates that this is about 10 times less likely than your odds of dying from a meteor strike. (Astronomer Alan Harris has pegged those odds at about 1 in 700,000.)
This is likely the seventh $1-million-plus prize to be won in St. Albert, according to the Gazette’s archives.
