$55M lottery prize winner for ticket bought in Yellowknife identified

NWT and Nunavut Lotteries has identified Laura Tutcho as the winner of a $55M ticket bought in Yellowknife early in May.

Anannouncement was made on the the NWT&NU Lotteries Facebook page Monday morning.

Tutcho, a freelance interpreter from Dln, Northwest Territories, was the only player across Canada to match all seven winning numbers on the May 1 draw.

"I just kept looking at the ticket, and looking back at the numbers," a news release from NWT andNunavutLotteries quotes Tutcho as saying. "My granddaughter told me, 'The numbers haven't changed, Grandma!'"

A biography of Tutcho on the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board website details Tutcho's lifelong work in support of the revitalization of the Sahtgot'ne language, from radio broadcasting to program development with the Government of the Northwest Territories. She holds a masters in Indigenous Language Revitalization from the University of Victoria.

The prize is the largest lottery win ever in the Northwest Territories five times more than the previous record of $11 million in 2007. That prize was claimed by Barkley Heron and Ann Lepine of Fort Smith N.W.T.

Lepine miraculously struck the lotto for a second time in 2011 to the tune of $7.7 million.