Joyce Tremblay has been buying lottery tickets for over 20 years, never winning more than $100 at a time. So when her friend Allan Slade’s 60th birthday rolled around, she didn’t think twice of buying Slade a
ticket at the Zehrs store in Tilbury.

The ticket Tremblay purchased turned out to be a big winner, and turned Slade and his wife Glynda into instant millionaires.

But since that $1-million ticket came in -- making the Slades the newest lottery winners in the area --Tremblay has no regrets about giving away the big prize. She’s happy her South Buxton friends came into the windfall.

“They’re nice people. And if you didn’t want them to win, you wouldn’t have given them the ticket.”

But one thing Tremblay could do without are the constant streams of people letting her know when their birthdays are, hoping she’ll pick them out a winner too.

“I’m still getting that all the time,” she said. “I really don’t know when it’ll stop.”

Some comfort has come from the inconvenience, however Slade said he’s giving Tremblay and her husband Eugene part of the winnings, though he won’t say how
much.

Other chunks of the money have gone into a new pickup truck and paying off his daughters’ student loans. But not much else has changed for the Slades.

“People always ask if we’re going to move. I don’t need a new house, what do I need a new house for?” Slade says.

Eugene Tremblay, who with his wife is sharing in the Slades’ happiness, thinks giving out lottery tickets for birthdays is still a good gift idea. And he’ll continue to do it despite the chance of giving another $1 million away.

“What else do old people do for their birthdays anyway?”