Lottery winner from Lone Butte, B.C., celebrates millionaire status with luxury cruise

Lotto winner Kenneth Birch is shown in this photo from the BC Lottery Corporation.

A man is trading his sleepy B.C. town for the open ocean after winning a cool $1-million lottery prize.

Lone Butte resident Kenneth Birch bought his winning ticket at the town’s namesake general store on Highway 24 and checked it, among other tickets, in the same store to find himself a winner. Lone Butte is a quaint community in the South Cariboo region of B.C. with a population in the hundreds.

“I couldn’t believe it when I found out that I won,” Birch tld the BC Lottery Corporation fter winning the May 17 Lotto 6/49 draw.

“I scanned it first and then had them scan it to tell me if it was right or not.”

Birch first spilled the beans to his wife, although it took some work to convince her the win was real.

“She told me to bring the ticket to show her,” he says.

“Once I did, she believed me and was really happy for me.”

Alongside purchasing a new Ford truck for himself, Birch plans to whisk his wife away on a luxury Caribbean cruise. With the win serendipitously timed with her birthday, he says the official celebration will take place over a luxury dinner.

“It’s her birthday, and I’ll order anything and everything we want,” he says.

In the meantime, Birch is getting accustomed to life as a new millionaire.

“It hasn’t really hit me yet,” he says.

The odds of winning the main Lotto 6/49 jackpot – which requires matching all six numbers drawn without using the bonus number – are approximately one in 14 million, according to the BCLC.