$100K Surrey lotto winner is ‘Susan F.’ because BCLC won’t give full names
Published 4:07 pm Thursday, June 4, 2026
News releases from BCLC no longer give full names of lottery winners including that of Surrey resident Susan F., who won a $100,000 MAXPLUS prize playing Lotto Max.
Last January BCLC began sharing only the first name and last initial for all lottery winners, in an apparent move to protect privacy.
“This approach is aligned with other jurisdictions in Canada that only promote winners’ first names and last initials,” wrote Shelley Wong, with BCLC Media Relations, in an email to the Now-Leader.
And so, BCLC this week declared Susan F. a winner of a Lotto Max draw May 8.
Susan F., we’re told, was out grocery shopping and, on a whim, decided to buy a lottery ticket at Willowbrook Shopping Centre in Langley, even though she wasn’t at her usual store.
Later, “I was at Chevron and I scanned the ticket on the self-scanner,” Susan says. “My first thought was that it was a mistake. I scanned it again, then scanned it a third time and then thought ‘okay!’ It wasn’t until I scanned it the second and third time that I realized I won.”
Susan F. was “at a loss for words,” and didn’t have much else to say about her lotto win.
BCLC says every Lotto Max draw includes multiple $100,000 cash prizes. For every $1 million in the main jackpot, a $100,000 prize is added to the draw.