A Quebec lottery winner chose $1K a week over $1M and people have some strong opinions

If you won a million-dollar lottery prize, people would probably call you lucky. But if you opted for smaller weekly payments instead, they might call you something else…

That’s the situation Maria Caroli from Laval finds herself in after winning Loto-Québec’s Gagnant à vie top prize in December.

The lucky ticket came as a gift from her partner. Caroli scratched it quickly before heading to work one morning and left it at home, not realizing she’d won the jackpot. According to a press release, her partner called her with the news while she was at work. “I left work at noon, I was so excited!” she told Loto-Québec when claiming her prize.

Caroli had two options: take $1 million upfront, or receive $1,000 every week for the rest of her life.

She chose the weekly payments, which Loto-Québec said “will allow her to maintain her current lifestyle while enjoying excellent financial security.”

That decision has sparked intense debate online, largely because of the winner’s age.

“Wow. A bit criminal that the lottery is allowed to let her do something so financially illiterate,” one person wrote on X.

Others broke down the numbers. One user calculated that if Caroli lives another 20 years and saves every penny of those weekly payments, she’d accumulate $1.04 million. In comparison, investing the $1 million lump sum with modest returns could potentially grow to $2.3 million over the same period.

“Taking the lump sum is always a better option, even if you think you’ll live a really long time,” they argued. “The break-even for taking $1,000/week is 36 years.”

Another commenter called it “fiscal malpractice” and suggested the weekly payment option “should either not be an option or illegal.”

“Imagine defending this; imagine thinking $1k/week for life > $1m lump in a country with no tax on lottery,” they added.

The investment potential is significant. With lottery winnings tax-free in Canada, $1 million earning conservative returns could generate substantial long-term wealth while preserving the principal amount.

But not everyone thinks Caroli made a mistake.

“The major advantage of her choice is that she’s not going to get strong-armed by every family member across 5 generations for ‘a bit of help with my car/house loan or struggling business sis?’ if they know she isn’t sitting on $1M,” one supporter pointed out.

Others highlighted the security of a guaranteed income that can’t be lost to bad investments or poor financial decisions. At $52,000 a year for life, Caroli has locked in steady payments regardless of economic conditions.

The winning ticket was purchased at the IGA Extra grocery store where Caroli works, located at 2137 Curé-Labelle Boulevard in Laval. The store received a $10,000 commission for selling the winning ticket.

According to Loto-Québec, Caroli rarely buys lottery tickets, making the gift from her partner especially fortunate.

This isn’t the first time a Quebec lottery winner’s choice has sparked debate. Last year, Montreal’s Brenda Aubin-Vega made the same decision, opting for weekly payments over the lump sum. But Aubin-Vega is in her 20s, giving her potentially decades more to collect payments.

Younger winners are typically advised to take lump sums because they have time to invest and grow that money over decades. For older winners, the timeline is shorter, meaning they’d need to live significantly longer to break even with what invested returns could generate.

The Gagnant à vie annuity guarantees payments for life, or a minimum of 20 years to heirs if the winner passes away early. The lump sum offers investment potential but carries more risk and requires active financial management.

Nevertheless, for someone who doesn’t mind maintaining the same lifestyle, a guaranteed $4,000-plus every month for the rest of her life might be exactly what she was hoping for.