What is it actually like to win the lottery? We asked one of Manitoba’s multi-millionaires to find out

Supplied image of Jeff Morton.

Just take a moment to imagine… you’ve won the lottery!

You can’t believe it. Is this really happening? Maybe you’re already dreaming about what you’ll spend the money on — a new house, a dream vacation, or maybe even quitting your job?

Then, with cheers of excitement, in front of TV cameras and news reporters, you’re handed a giant cheque with a lot of zeroes on it… and then what?

What actually happens when you win the lottery?

CTV News spoke with one of Manitoba’s multi-millionaires to find out.

A forgotten lottery ticket in small-town Manitoba

Multi-millionaire. It’s a title that, at times, still feels pretty surreal for Jeff Morton — even four years after winning $10 million.

Morton had been working at the same job for 32 years in the western community of Hamiota, Man. It’s a small community, the kind of place where, as he described it, everybody knows everybody.

About once a month, Morton bought himself a lottery ticket, though he never won anything big.

That all changed one December day in 2021. Morton was eating his dinner and listening to the radio, where he heard about a $10 million unclaimed Lotto 6/49 ticket.

That’s when he remembered the ticket he had bought months earlier. There it was, still sitting on his shelf with some unpaid bills and other odds and ends.

The next day, he brought it to the store and got the surprise of his life.

“The girl at the machine said, ‘Oh, sir, I think you just won a whole lot of money.’” Morton recalled. “She was trying to count the zeros on the ticket.”

Morton said he held it together in the store, but when he got home, it sank in.

“It probably took me a week to kind of get my head back on straight again,” Morton said.

How do you cash a cheque with seven zeros on it?

Next came the big cheque presentation in Winnipeg. (Morton still has the cheque, by the way, hanging on the wall in his garage.) But have you ever tried cashing a cheque with seven zeros on it?

“Yeah, what do you do with a cheque for $10 million in a little town of 1,000 people?” he said. “The banks had a hard time putting it in because they didn’t have enough limit, and it took quite a while.”

Between the many meetings with investors and financial planners, he said the first eight months were a real learning curve.

Despite being a newly minted multi-millionaire, Morton didn’t quit his job the next day. Morton, then 64 years old, was planning to retire the next year anyway. So, he decided to finish the winter there before retiring early in the spring.

What is a mistake some lottery winners make? One expert weighs in

But what now? What do you do with $10 million?

It’s a question Stephan Desbiens has been asked before. The Ottawa-based partner and associate portfolio manager at Exponent Investment Management has developed a kind of niche clientele.

“We’ve had the fortune to be called upon to help lottery winners,” said Desbiens, who has worked with about a dozen so far, helping them make a plan with their newfound financial freedom.

He said regardless of the win — be it $10,000 or $50 million — winning the lottery is a highly emotional experience. Those emotions can sometimes cause problems.

“Oftentimes, as the saying goes, decision-making when emotions are involved is not always the best,” he said.

He recalls one case where a lottery winner was driving to collect the money with his son and promised him a large chunk of it. It was only after he started to think about all the other family members too.

Desbiens said that very first decision as a new lottery winner has caused a family rift, which continues to this day.

Advice for lottery winners: Stop, think, breathe

That’s why his advice to lottery winners is pretty simple: “Just stop, think, and breathe.”

He recommends reaching out to trusted advisors or family members and giving yourself time to process what has happened before anything else.

His next piece of advice to lottery winners — stay grounded.

“If one wins a million dollars, it’s a super fun thing to have happen to you, but it doesn’t mean that you should become a different person,” he said. “You should try to just mostly remain the same as you were before.”

That’s exactly what Morton has been doing.

Staying grounded as a multi-millionaire

Now, four years after his big win, Morton says his life actually hasn’t changed that much.

“I didn’t want it to change,” he said. “I didn’t want to be this ‘richie guy’ wandering around town like I’m a king, you know? I just wanted to be just the way I was before I won it.”

One of the ways he’s done that is by giving back to his community, chipping in when people need help and donating where he can.

“I don’t mind helping out. You know, before the money came, I wasn’t able to do that. I was going to be just nip and tuck, living on a pension and stuff like that,” he said.

Morton has been able to enjoy the financial freedom as well — he’s built a new house, bought a new truck, and has been able to help his children with their mortgages.

There is the running joke that when you win the lottery, suddenly a long-lost ‘family member’ comes crawling out of the woodwork. But not in Morton’s case.

“I was warned about that,” he said. “But, you know, it never happened in my little town.”

As for the future, Morton said he is now focused on teaching his children how to look after the money and to use it wisely when he’s not around.

When asked if he still plays the lottery?

“I only buy when they’re big,” he said.