Lotto 6/49 jackpot winner Gayle Zolaturiuk is presented with her giant $30 million cheque by OLG president and CEO Rod Phillips in Toronto on March 8, 2013. (Terry Davidson/Toronto Sun)

Never again will Ontario’s newest multi-million dollar, rags-to-riches lottery winner see black cats as the purveyors of bad luck.

Unemployed single mom Gayle Zolaturiuk found a homeless and undernourished black cat wandering outside the door of her seventh-floor Hamilton apartment last February. Little did Zolaturiuk know that just a few weeks after taking the downtrodden feline in, she would win $30 million from a quick pick Lotto 6/49 ticket — a weekly purchase she’d been indulging in for years.

Zolaturiuk, who has forever been trying to make ends meet as she raises her 16-year-old son, was at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming offices in downtown Toronto Friday to accept her giant cheque from president and CEO Rod Phillips.

For years, the affable Zolaturiuk — a former waitress who was forced into unemployment because of various “health issues” — had gone without in order to provide for her son: no car, fancy jewellery or stylish clothing for her.