Two days before winning a ward seat in London's municipal election, Steve Hillier found out he was a millionaire.
The Ward 14 councillor-elect won a $1 million MaxMillions prize in last Friday's Lotto Max draw. On Sunday, he had just finished one last door-to-door canvass before the election when he decided to check his tickets using the OLG app he had downloaded on his phone.
"I clicked on the first three tickets - nothing, nothing, nothing - then I did the fourth ticket and 'ding ding ding' it started going off. I'm going that's really cool and I didn't believe my eyes. So I shut down the app and reloaded it again and it did it again," said Hillier, who then took the ticket to a convenience store in Byron to verify the win.
Hillier was instructed by Ontario’s lottery regulator to keep his win a secret until he could go to its headquarters in Toronto, which he did on Wednesday. In the meantime, the businessman defeated incumbent Jared Zaifman to claim a seat on London's city council. The results of the Ward 14 race were announced on Tuesday morning.
"I will be completely fair, I was more thrilled winning the election than I was winning the lottery. It sounds bad, but it is true," said Hillier with a laugh. "My wife was on the floor in the fetal position crying with happiness. She was so thrilled... The whole couple days haven't really sank in yet."
The father of two has already used the money to pay off his mortgage and plans to also pay off his kids' student loans before investing the rest.
"This way I can concentrate full-time on helping Ward 14," said Hillier.
Hillier has been playing the same lottery numbers for 30 years and noted he won the $1 million Lotto Max prize on a free play.
"Everyone keeps telling me good news comes in threes, so I am really like 'okay, what's coming next," Hillier joked.
