Many lottery players see the big jackpot as a way to escape the workforce. For Toronto resident Lydia Nono, however, it's a ticket back in.
The 49-year-old mother of three grown children was laid off 16 months ago from a factory job, where she made paper cups for Tim Hortons.
She won $20 million in Friday's Lotto Super 7 draw, and she says she might spend some of the money to open her own business.
"A coffee shop, a little one, something I can run myself," she said yesterday at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation prize centre in Toronto.
Nono, a single mother with three grown children, has been playing the Super 7 for 20 years.
She copied down the numbers from the Internet but didn't check them right away. On Monday morning, she was riding the bus when she matched her ticket against the numbers.
She started shaking.
From a friend's house, she called her son, Jeff, at work to double check the numbers. "I didn't believe her at first," he said. But the numbers matched up. "I couldn't concentrate afterwards."
She alerted her daughters, Jen and Jacky, and the family met for a celebratory dinner. So far, they say, they haven't been able to sleep.
Nono, who's never won anything more than $500 in the lottery before, doesn't have any extravagant spending plans just yet.
"Right now, (I'll) just pay off my debts, pay off my mortgage and go on vacation," she said. She said she has been discussing a family holiday with her kids, but they haven't decided on where to go.
And there's the coffee shop. When asked why she would return to work, when so many other lottery winners would gladly take the money and leave their jobs behind, she just shrugged.
"You have to do something," she said. "Or you'll get bored."
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