Teen buys lottery ticket on 18th birthday, wins $1,000 a week for life

Turning 18 is a pretty exciting milestone. You’re finally an adult in the eyes of the law, which means you can do grown-up things that had previously been forbidden to you, like buying a lottery ticket.

In Canada, 18 is also the legal drinking age, so when Charlie Lagarde, a Quebec resident, celebrated that big birthday, she decided to go to a convenience store and buy a bottle of sparkling wine, as well as a scratch-off lottery ticket. Lagarde apparently had the world’s greatest case of beginner’s luck, because the young woman scored the grand prize: 1,000 Canadian dollars ($775 USD), once a week, for life!

Wow, what a way to enter adulthood! Lagarde had the option to take her prize in the form of a $1 million lump sum or the $1,000 weekly annuity. After consulting a financial adviser, she chose the latter option.

“It’s without taxes, so it’s equivalent to a salary of more than $100,000 a year, so it’s a great start in life for that young lady,” Patrice Lavoie, a spokesman for the lottery corporation told the Toronto Star. “That was her first lottery ticket ever and she fell upon a winning ticket.”

Although winning the lottery works out to pretty cushy salary, Lagarde doesn’t plan to sit around and live off her luck for the rest of her life. Instead, she told lottery officials she hopes to study photography and one day become a professional photographer for National Geographic, according to Loto-Quebec.

What an amazing birthday present!

The teen’s awesome win comes just a few weeks after 31 co-workers won one of the largest Canadian jackpots in history. The members of the Boilermakers Local 203 union had been buying tickets as a group for 3 months. Together, they won a CA$60 million jackpot ($46.7 million), giving them each CA$1.9 million ($1.5 million).

Although they’re now all millionaires, many of them said they plan to go back to work. Talk about an epic payday!

Would you take the lump sum or weekly payments? Turning down the chance to be a millionaire would be pretty tough.