‘Didn’t even stop to count the zeros’: Sask. woman named as $18M Lotto 6-49 winner

The day Cora Cuthbert found out she was going to be Saskatchewan’s newest millionaire, she said she had forgotten about the ticket.

She walked into work, put her purse down and then remembered there was a ticket she hadn’t checked yet. So, she took out her phone and used the app.

“I thought it was a glitch on my phone, I didn’t even stop to count the zeros,” she told the crowd at the event to reveal her win to the province on Thursday. She was also given a custom-made ribbon skirt from the lottery corporation created by Treaty 4 artist Kendra Bellegarde of KBelle Skirts.

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Cuthbert is from the Pheasant Rump Nakota First Nation, west of Weyburn. She was a home care worker in the community.

She said she scanned the ticket five times at work with co-workers who were all getting excited for her. Then she went to the pharmacy in nearby Arcola to confirm it, her sister and cousin in tow – Cuthbert said the pharmacy wasn’t even open yet.

“(The workers) scans it and all three of us just start screaming, we were so excited,” she remembered.

“I’ve never gone through that much happiness before – I’ve been happy before, but not like that.”

The lottery corporation also gifted the $18 million winner, Cora Cuthbert, a custom-made ribbon skirt. Jan. 29. 2026 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Cuthbert only moved to Saskatchewan about a year and a half ago; she’d been living in Alberta before that. Pheasant Rump is her mother’s home community; she died about three years ago.

Cuthbert also lost her father in June, who she said was very important to her. She teared up talking about him.

“On the way here, all I was thinking was ‘I wish I was doing this with you Dad’ … He didn’t want to see me go through the pain that I endured when he died,” she said.

So, she’s taking the lottery win as a blessing and gift from both her parents, and she plans to spend at least some of the money on family.

“I think these first two years I’m just going to do family things – do things with the family and go places with the family and shop with the family,” Cuthbert explained, saying she wants to go places and have experiences they couldn’t before.

Cuthbert said she also wants to do some things to help her community and do what she can there.

She’s also talking about getting into the movie business to tell more Canadian Indigenous stories.

“I want to be more involved in that because we need to get more of our stories out there,” she said.

Cuthbert said her mother suffered in residential school, and so did many others, and she wants to get their stories out there.

“I want to make sure that people understand that this is real, this is the heartache and pain that we lived through.”

Many of those plans are for the future for Cuthbert. Immediately, she said she wants to splurge on her son and her dog.