Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

This B.C. couple had a winning lottery ticket worth $500k and didn't know it for a week

Moving day got in the way of them discovering their win. But they'll be moving again soon!
lottery-couple
Robert Walters and Lois Gueret had a Celebrate 2020 Scratch & Win ticket worth $500,000 in their possession for over a week and didn’t even know it. Photo courtesy BCLC

Moving day sucks. It’s long, tiring and makes you feel like everything important is missing.

How many times have you moved and ended up losing something? What if it was the ticket to financial security?

It’s a nightmare many people have – they have a winning lottery ticket but they lose it before collecting their prize.

That nearly happened to Robert Walters and Lois Gueret, who had a Celebrate 2020 Scratch & Win ticket worth $500,000 in their possession for over a week and didn’t even know it.

The couple recently downsized to a motorhome and at some point during the move, the unscratched Celebrate 2020 ticket was shuffled from a drawer to a box, which was supposed to be headed for storage.

“Robert found the unscratched ticket and handed it to me, and it easily could’ve ended up in storage and gone expired,” says Lois, who scratched the winning ticket. “It’s a moving day miracle that it didn’t.”

Robert bought the ticket in late January. Even though he’s a regular Scratch & Win player, it was the first time he had bought a Celebrate 2020 ticket.

“I asked the store clerk what the latest tickets were, because I like to play new ones too,” says Robert. “He pointed to the Celebrate 2020 tickets and it just caught my eye … After this I’ll be going back to give him a little bonus.”

Despite their recent downsize to a motorhome, Walters and Gueret admit the $500,000 win means they could be on the move again soon – potentially to a house in the Fraser Valley.

“We’ll be paying off some debt, but definitely we’ll be considering a move again, this time somewhere with land,” says Robert.

Read more from the Burnaby NOW