'Take the pressure off': Recent B.C. lottery winners say prizes bring relief

Matthew Cookney, left, and Nikolaos Ntokolas were two of the three B.C. winners of Maxmillions prizes in the May 27 Lotto Max draw. (BCLC)

Three B.C. residents won Maxmillions prizes in a recent Lotto Max draw, and the two that have been publicly identified by the B.C. Lottery Corporation so far have reacted to their big wins with a similar emotion: relief.

"It’s a life-changing amount of money that can take the pressure off of the cost of living as a family,” Sechelt resident Matthew Cookney told BCLC in a news release issued by the corporation.

Cookney won a $1 million Maxmillions prize in the May 27 Lotto Max draw. He told BCLC he plans on using his winnings to take a family vacation, pay off his mortgage and invest.

Delta resident Nikolaos Ntokolas also won a Maxmillions prize in the May 27 draw. He will share the $1 million prize with a third winner from Kamloops who BCLC has not yet identified.

Ntokolas told BCLC he feels "happy and relieved" to have won $500,000.

"This win will make life less stressful," the grandfather said. "I think winning at this age is a great time to win."

Both men said they were in disbelief when they initially saw they won. That initial shock quickly turned to a desire to share the good news with family – parents in Cookney's case, grandchildren in Ntokolas'.

The odds of matching all seven numbers and claiming a Maxmillions prize are the same as the odds of winning a Lotto Max jackpot: approximately one in 33,294,800.