Cash versus home a tough call

Dick and Peggy Nishi have bought tickets on the WinFall Lottery ever since it launched 15 years ago.

Until last week, the most the North Delta couple ever got in return was $500.

Things have changed.

Last week, the Nishis’ investment in the lottery earned them its top prize: choice of a luxury oceanview home package in White Rock, a waterfront townhome package in False Creek or $1.75 million cash.

“I think we’re leaning toward getting the cash,” a still-shocked, but smiling, Dick Nishi said the day after the Oct. 29 draw, during a tour of the three-level White Rock home with his three children and seven grandchildren.

Nishi was on a delivery route not far from the prize home – taking seafood to area restaurants – when he got the WinFall call. The caller told him to pull over, then broke the news.

At first, Nishi wasn’t buying it. He was sure his work buddies were trying to pull a fast one on him. After it sunk in, he called Peggy. But she, too, had doubts.

“When Dickie called me it was, ‘Oh right, sure. Are you kidding?’” she said.

Picking their prize posed a bit of a dilemma for the couple. They are in the process of downsizing, and recently traded their 3,500-sq.ft. North Delta home for a 40-year-old, 1,900-sq.ft fixer-upper.

“I just fell in love with this house,” Peggy said of the fixer-upper. The pair looked at about 200 homes before they found it, she noted.

Looking around the 14436 Sunset Dr. prize home Friday, she was somewhat torn.

“Now, I don’t know. It’s anything anybody would want. I just can’t believe it.”

Cash, when it’s offered, is the choice more and more home lottery winners take, noted Jackie Smith, executive director of the Peace Arch Hospital and Community Health Foundation.

Sandi McNeill, one of the Nishis three children, said the win “couldn’t have happened to two nicer people.”

“They have worked so hard all their life... but have always given so much, in anyway they could, to everyone,” McNeill said by e-mail.

Tuesday, the Nishis announced their decision. They chose the cash.

Surrey’s K. Evans won second prize in the lottery, a choice between a 2010 Audi Q5 3.2, a 2010 Audi A5 2L or $52,000 cash. Third prize – choice of a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, 2009 VW Passat Sedan or $28,000 cash – went to Vancouver’s T.C. Aduna.

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