Run to Walmart for burger buns, cheese nets Surrey man $80M lotto win

Turns out a last-minute run to get some dinner supplies could make you B.C.’s newest millionaire.

Surrey resident Justin Simporios, 35, won $80 million on May 9, marking the biggest ever lottery jackpot won in the province, and the largest jackpot won by a single person in Canadian history.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, Simporios says he was making burgers for his wife and daughter for dinner, and he needed to grab some buns and cheese. He made his way to Walmart in Surrey Central where he also put down $12 on a Quick Pick Lotto Max ticket.

“Six p.m., I knew Lotto Max was coming up, so [I thought], let’s take a chance,” he explained.

“My daughter was a bit sick at the time. It was 10:30 p.m, I saw that someone won $80 million in Surrey. I was joking and told my wife, ‘We’re millionaires!’ and she told me to stop making that joke, because our daughter’s sleeping,” he said.

Simporios says he was looking at his ticket with the flashlight, going through each number, and they kept matching the winning numbers.

“When it hit five out of seven, I [began to] think we’re millionaires. So, when it hit 38, I screamed, I shouted, I cried, I turned on the lights,” he said. “Like, we don’t have to work anymore, this is life-changing. … And then I scan it, and we can’t believe it. It was like a dream.”

Simporios says he handed in his resignation just hours earlier on Thursday morning, with the lotto win enabling him to spend more time with his young daughter.

He explains the win will also secure his family’s future. His plan so far is to retire his mother and set him and his wife’s family up for life.

“I really want to give back to the community as much as I could. We already have some charities in our brains right now, but we’re going to decide once we get to a financial advisor,” Simporios said. “You know, Canada’s home, so I want to give back as much as I can.”

“I’m an immigrant, I came from a really poor country. This money is a lot. I’ve been struggling, I’m a father, I work full time. I have a daughter. I want to go home, I want to spend time with them, but as a father, you want to balance it out, right? Should I work, or should I spend time with my daughter and not have food — those kinds of stuff,” he explained.

“I know every struggle [that] every Canadian [has], so with this amount of money, I’ll be able to spend more time with my daughter, with my wife, with my family, like it’s awesome.

“Thank you. I am feeling blessed right now.”