While many couples celebrated Valentine’s Day with a romantic dinner, Dino Mori and his wife, Julie, enjoyed a short lunch together. As Julie headed back to work at Lions Oval Public School, where she is an early childhood educator, Dino worked on the Valentine’s Day scratch ticket his wife bought for him.
“It was a $10 Crossword ticket with five puzzles,” said Dino. “It was not a five-minute thing, so I wasn’t finished when she went back to school. All of a sudden, I’m scratching away and I notice one of the puzzles has 10 words scratched off and I look at the prize (legend) and it says $25,000. I was as high as a kite.”
After texting his wife and sisters with the happy news, he called his mom, before calling a friend he works with at Casino Rama. She suggested he go to Zehrs, where Julie purchased the ticket, to verify the prize.
At Zehrs, he got the shock of his life. “The cashier scanned it and (the machine) says ‘BIG WINNER’, $250,000!” recalls Dino, 51. “Literally, my knees buckled and they asked if I was OK. I thought I had won $25,000, money for a new car, and I realized I had just won life-changing money.”
He raced away from Zehrs “like a bat out of hell” en route to Lions Oval. He hopped a snowbank to celebrate with his wife, who was in the schoolyard with her kindergarten charges. “I ran up to her, gave her a big kiss and told her we didn’t win $25,000,” he says. “She got this funny look on her face and then I told her we had won $250,000.”
Julie, 48, had trouble processing the news. “I was in disbelief,” she says. And while it’s amazing news for the couple, the good news was like a giant bolt of sunshine at the school. “Our staff has had a rash of sadness and disappointment over the past eight years that I have been there. Every year, it seems, something bad happens. When people heard the news that we had won, it was like some good luck finally coming to the Oval.”
That good luck continued for the winners later that day. Ironically, they had a bank appointment late in the afternoon to renegotiate their mortgage, but by the time they got to the bank, it had closed. So, they opted to go next door for a coffee at Tim Hortons.
However, a visiting team of high-school girls was in line, leading to a long wait. Their coach, appreciating the Moris’ patience, paid for their bill and for two others before he left. “I went to say thanks and he had already left,” said Dino. “It was a pretty good day.”
Late Thursday, the couple completed their wild whirlwind by picking up their cheque at Ontario’s Lottery and Gaming headquarters in Toronto. It was a six-hour process – and worth every minute.
“I don’t think it’s really going to sink in until we go to the bank and pay off the mortgage,” said Dino, whose previous largest jackpot was $400 on a scratch ticket last Christmas. “You always think this kind of thing doesn’t happen to common folk like myself and Julie … but it does.”
In addition to paying off their mortgage, the couple plans to pay off the new Honda Dino purchased last week. They also intend to travel.
“Dino loves going to different baseball parks, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be visiting some more,” said Julie, with a laugh. “I’ve gone to 14 of 30 (Major League Baseball) stadiums and I’m thinking maybe this summer, we’ll go to Texas and go to games in Houston and Arlington,” Dino said.
But they don’t see their life changing too much. Dino is heading back to work at Casino Rama, where he is a floor supervisor, and Julie is already back with her kindergarten kids at Lions Oval. “We don’t have kids, but I have 31 Kindergarten students … they were ecstatic that we won,” she says. “But they were just as happy to see Mr. Mori pay us a visit and see him happy.”
Dino, who loves to play the scratch tickets, will continue to do so. “We will continue to probably spend $20 or $30 a week on lottery tickets, but we are also mindful that this is our nest egg for when we retire. We won’t get carried away,” said Dino.
