Woman’s decision to eat fiance’s ice-cream treat pays off – $50M, to be exact

TORONTO – Eating your fiance’s last ice-cream bar may not be a smart thing to do, but the craving certainly paid off for an Orillia, Ont., woman.

A trip to the local store to “replace” the treat — and a Lotto Max ticket purchased there — made the newly engaged couple Ontario’s latest multimillionaires.

Deanna Bergeron, 30, and her fiance Jeff Bourret, 32, collected their cheque at the OLG Presentation Centre in Toronto on Monday after winning the Sept. 5 draw of Lotto Max.

“I ate Jeff’s last buster bar and I went to the store to replace it with a drumstick and decided to buy another ticket and it turned out to be the winner,” said Bergeron.

“So, I think we are going to have a lot of drumsticks in our future,” she laughed.

On the Sunday after the draw, Bergeron got a call from her mother telling her she heard someone in Orillia had bought the winning ticket and urged to check hers.

When it was confirmed that the couple had indeed won the lottery, Bergeron said their first reaction was disbelief.

“No words to explain. We looked at each other and said ‘where do we go from here,’” added Bourret. “Till it happens, you just don’t really know what to expect.”

The couple said they were still trying to process the win, but the first thing on their mind was a vacation, “sooner than later.”

Bergeron is a personal trainer while Bourret works for the federal government.

The couple got engaged in the first week of June, but they have yet to set a wedding date.

“Trying to process this. Once we get through some of the excitement of this, then we will sit down and figure out the wedding plans,” said Bourret.