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When she first went to check her Lotto Max ticket at a self-serve Loto-Québec kiosk in Longueuil on Saturday morning, Liliane Synotte Deschênes thought she’d won $32,000. The husband of the retired woman from Longueuil told her to check it again.

Photo by Pierre Obendrauf / Montreal Gazette

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“Then my husband said, ‘You won $32 million!’ and I said well clearly the machine is broken,” said Synotte Deschênes at a news conference at Loto-Québec’s Montreal headquarters on Wednesday.

“I said, ‘You can see the machine isn’t working properly. I didn’t just win $32 million. So I tried it four times. And it really was $32 million. Then my husband said, ‘You better sit down.’ Apparently my face had gone very white.”

She didn’t let that ticket out of her sight for the rest of the weekend, until she could head down to Loto-Québec’s office in Montreal on Monday to collect her winnings.

“It was a long time to wait,” said Synotte Deschênes.

She even slept with the lotto ticket in her purse by her side in bed.