N.B. man claims $64M jackpot nearly a year after draw

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Merel Chiasson of Bas-Caraquet claimed a $64-million lottery jackpot Thursday with a ticket that had been sitting in his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.

Chiasson and a companion came to the Atlantic Lottery headquarters in Moncton Thursday for a brief ceremony to collect the prize and make a brief statement. He declined to answer questions from reporters, saying only that he was still thinking about what to do with all that money. The corporation said the $64-million prize was the largest ever won in Atlantic Canada.

Molly Cormier, director of communications for Atlantic Lottery, said Chiasson’s win came just as the corporation was trying to find the winner. The corporation had issued a news release this week saying that someone in northern New Brunswick had won the $64-million prize but hadn’t come forward to claim it, and sent a town crier to local communities to spread the word.

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n a news release, Atlantic Lottery said Chiasson heard people in the area talking about the unclaimed $64-million Lotto 6/49 Gold Ball Jackpot from the April 15, 2023 draw many times, but he never imagined he could be the winner. Instead, he kept the ticket among a collection of other unchecked tickets at home, where he regularly checks them one month’s worth at a time shortly before they are set to expire.

As a result of this routine, he said he was never concerned he might miss out on a prize.

“I’ve always done it like that and I never thought I would win big, so I leave the tickets there and didn’t worry too much about it,” he said in the news release. When he checked the ticket and found out he was a winner, he wasn’t sure if it was $64,000 or $64 million.

“There was a lot of zeros, so I wasn’t sure,” he said in the news release. He came to the Atlantic Lottery office in Moncton to confirm the win.

Chiasson said he had been a crab fisherman for 40 years and started working at a fish plant a few years ago. He said the win will allow him to retire and share some of the winnings with his family.

“I don’t want anything big,” he said in the news release. “It’s not going to change me, I’m still the same person.”

The winning Lotto 6/49 ticket was purchased at Depanneur Pokemouche in Pokemouche, N.B. The
retailer will receive a one per cent seller’s prize.

Atlantic Lottery has a one-year deadline to claim winnings. If prizes aren’t claimed, the money rolls into an unclaimed winnings fund and is used to pay out future prizes.

The Gold Ball draw is part of the Lotto 6/49 game. Each week, a ball is drawn for a guaranteed winner. If it is a white ball, the prize is $1 million, and if it is gold they win the jackpot, which grows larger each week.