He Thought He Won $500. Then He Saw the Extra Zeroes.

Like any good golfer, Woo Jung K. knows the key to the game is consistency. You find your stroke and repeat it over and over until it's second nature. The Burnaby resident has the same approach to the lottery. He plays Quick Picks on his BCLC Lotto! app, and he's done it for the past 23 years. Like golf, it's part of Woo Jung’s routine, a fun way to relax.

So when he checked his Extra ticket on the BCLC Lotto! app one evening at home and saw what looked like a $500 prize, he was pleasantly surprised. After all, $500 is a pretty nice little win. He woke up his wife to show her, and then called over his daughter, perhaps expecting a small round of applause from the family. They were all looking at the screen, when they noticed something.

An extra zero. No, three extra zeroes.

It wasn’t $500. It was $500,000. Woo Jung had won half a million dollars and the whole family had nearly missed it.

“I thought it was $500. Then we realized...”

Woo Jung tried to keep himself calm and steady. He doubled checked that the ticket was real on the BCLC Lotto! app. Woo Jung has lived in Burnaby since 2004, and in all that time playing the lottery he never really expected a win like this. And now that he’s won, he’s adamant that the huge sum of money won’t change his life. He’s not an extravagant man and has no plans for a big purchase. The prize, he says, will provide helpful additional income and it will make things a little easier.

Woo Jung isn’t the type to throw himself a big celebration party. Instead, he’s keeping it simple: a quiet family dinner at a nice restaurant. The same people who were crowded around the phone that night, squinting at a number that turned out to be much bigger than anyone expected.

He’ll keep playing, too. Hey, once you found your swing, you keep it up, every day.

Woo Jung’s story is a good reminder that consistency pays off. And it’s a good reminder to take a long look at the numbers on any winning ticket, just to make sure you aren’t missing a few zeroes.