The yearlong investigation of a $50 million Lotto Max winner may not be over after all. The OLG presented the winning cheque to Hamilton native Kathryn Jones in a Toronto press conference earlier this week, but Cambridge resident Les King is making his own claim for the winnings.
The dispute stems from a year old Lotto Max draw on November 30 2012, when a winning ticket was drawn for the $50 million jackpot. But no winner stepped forward to claim the prize, prompting the OLG to conduct their own investigation that eventually led them to find Jones in Hamilton.
With the investigation concluded and the winning cheque officially handed over to the Hamilton woman, Canadian lottery players expected the mysterious Lotto Max saga to be concluded. However, King is making his own claim for the winnings, who filed a claim in the form of a lawsuit against the OLG to investigate what he describes as his rightful assertion to the jackpot.
“I would have thought that my lawsuit would have given the OLG cause to withhold the awarding of the $50 million until the lawsuit was settled.”
According to King, he bought a Lotto Max ticket at the same Shoppers Drug Mart in Cambridge on the same day as Jones, who was in town for work before commuting home to Hamilton. He says though he lost his ticket, he began calling the OLG within days of the November 30 draw to make his claim.
King says that while he has no ill feelings towards Jones, he feels that he deserves the Lotto Max jackpot due to making a claim. In his filed lawsuit, King argues that Jones never made the claim, that the OLG found the Hamilton woman through an investigation. King says as someone who made the claim for the prize, a proper investigation was justified before awarding the cheque.
If King’s claim proceeds as he intends within the courts, the investigation may not be over just yet.