A collector is almost a millionaire… in lottery tickets

Blainville | An enthusiast from the North Shore has amassed nearly a million lottery tickets, a collection that includes practically all models issued in Quebec over the past 50 years.

Jean-Guy Liret was not a compulsive gambler, but a “compulsive collector”, he himself admits with a laugh.

“One day without playing in my tickets, it’s almost not complete”, began the man who started his collection in 1972, two years after the launch of Lotto-Québec.

In a small room in his basement, more or less 925,000 worth of scraps of paper are carefully stored in narrow cardboard boxes that rise from floor to ceiling.

Each series of lottery tickets is listed chronologically, numbered and entered in an excel sheet.

“When you start, you put it in a little box, but at some point it outgrows memory capacity,” he says, justifying his list as befits a seasoned archivist.

Boost

Jean-Guy Lirette is far from sketching every piece in his impressive collection. In fact, he only buys two mini tickets a week and the occasional Lotto Max for “looses”.

A retiree can count on a business in the sector to provide him with his customers’ used tickets, and this from the start.

“Most people tear up the ticket and throw it in the trash when they don’t win. It is a massacre,” sighed the 70-year-old collector.

Today, Mr. Liret predicted.

“Most have a few winning tickets, but I won’t force myself to take any.”

Excited, he shows Log Quebec’s first “gratueux”, a special Valentine’s edition that smells of cinnamon when scratched and some amazing Louisiana lottery tickets.

40 hours per week

At one time he exchanged with a hundred international correspondents and devoted 40 hours a week to his leisure in addition to a full-time job in telecommunications.

However, with age, the so-called congiariophiliste, lottery ticket collectors, decided to focus on Loto-Québec.

But why so much effort to accumulate lottery tickets in particular?

“Of course we can say that these are obscene pieces of paper, and we take them to look at them. But it is like money or stamps… they have some value,” he pleaded.

• Jean-Guy Lirette will exhibit part of his collection at the Salon des Grands Collectionneurs de Quebec in September.