What we know about Hamilton’s biggest ever lottery winner
Between 2015 and 2022, 31 Hamiltonians raked in a combined $43.5 million off OLG lotteries.
A lot of dough in seven years, right?
Not if you consider that Leah Murdoch-Gerics took home that whopping sum in a single day - and then some.
With a $60-million windfall from the Lotto Max draw April 19, Murdoch-Gerics became the biggest lottery winner in Hamilton history, according to OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti.
The 58-year-old's enormous jackpot win, announced Thursday at OLG headquarters, stemmed from a mere $5 spent on an online Quick Pick ticket.
She now joins an exclusive club of multi-millionaire Hamilton lotto champs.
Of the 43 locals to win more than $1 million through lotteries since February 2011, only four have received prizes in excess of eight figures, according to OLG data provided to The Spectator.
Oddly, three of those winners came in the span of four months in 2013, when Nick Takticos took home $30 million, Jennifer McIntyre won $19 million and Kathryn Jones nabbed a whopping $50 million off a lost lottery ticket.
It would take nearly a full decade until the city was home to a bigger winner than the aforementioned trio.
Here's what we know about the ever-so-lucky Murdoch-Gerics.
- A self-described occasional lotto player, Murdoch-Gerics' jackpot marks the largest ever Lotto Max prize won by using the internet to play the lottery.
- She's a mother to an unspecified number of children and lives in Ancaster.
- She plans to use her winnings, an amount she said she couldn't fathom," on a family trip that's yet to have a set destination.
- Her husband - who she said was planning to retire but will now take on a new, unexpected role as family manager - was once chair of the elders' board at West Highland Church on the Mountain. A church spokesperson told The Spec on Friday they were aware of Murdoch-Gerics' windfall, but declined to offer further comment.
- Since 2015, she's worked as a wellness advocate for doTERRA, said a spokesperson for the American marketing company, which sells essential oils and other products.
- OLG said Murdoch-Gerics will kindly decline" all media interviews as she navigates her life-changing win. The Spectator's efforts to independently reach her were to no avail Friday.
Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com