Hillsboro friends win $7.4 million jackpot

(FEBRUARY 1, 2021) A good friendship is priceless. That is what Erik Maki and Brian Krahmer will tell you. After more than 40 years of sharing a friendship, they can also say they share a $7.4 million lottery jackpot.

Maki and Krahmer live in Hillsboro. They have worked together for 25 years. They take turns buying lottery tickets.

“We always check our tickets on Monday,” said Maki. “The best we’d done had been winning a free ticket! Our offices are next door to each other and Brian brought the ticket and said we’d won $7,400. We were pretty excited about that. Then Brian decided to check what number we’d missed and he compared the ticket to the Lottery app. That’s when he saw that we’d matched all six numbers and we’d really won $7.4 million!”

The first thing they did was contact their wives to tell them the news. “They didn’t believe us at first,” said Krahmer. “That was understandable because we both like to joke around.” Then Maki and Krahmer wisely contacted their financial planner and accountant before they claimed their prize.

The two friends shared the $7.4 million prize. After taxes, each man received a check for nearly $1.3 million.

The Oregon Lottery began selling tickets in 1985. It has earned more than $12 billion for economic development, public education, Outdoor School, state parks, Veteran Services and watershed enhancements.