1 March 2017

$3.8 million in the bank, but nothing to buy

What would you add to the shopping trolley if you’d just won Powerball? Forget champagne, Christchurch’s newest Powerball millionaire spent an hour scouring the supermarket shelves and bought… absolutely nothing.

The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, had no idea that the Lotto ticket tucked in his wallet was worth $3.8 million until he popped into his local supermarket to go grocery shopping on Sunday morning.

“As we were heading to the supermarket my partner mentioned that someone had won big at Wainoni Pak N Save. I just replied, ‘lucky bastard’ and didn’t think much more of it,” said the winner.

“I always check my Lotto tickets before I do the groceries, so when we arrived at the shops I headed straight to the Lotto counter and put my tickets under the self-checker. I won a Bonus Line on my Strike ticket, so I was feeling pretty happy – then I scanned my Powerball ticket.

“It came up with a message saying to go to the counter, so I thought I’d won a couple of thousand – I was pretty stoked.”

The winner then handed his lucky Lotto ticket to the operator, not realising just how much his life was about to change.

“She put it through the machine and said, ‘Do you realise what you’ve won?’ I said I thought it was a couple of thousand, then she handed me a slip of paper and said ‘Not quite – you better read this.’

“I looked at the figure and thought they’d printed too many zeros in the cents section. I couldn’t work it out, so handed it to my partner and said ‘That’s $3,833 with a bunch of cents, right?’ and she said ‘I don’t think those are cents, honey’,” the winner said.

“We both looked at the Lotto lady and said ‘Are we reading this right?’ and she smiled and said ‘You definitely are – you better come with me.’”

After the prize was officially confirmed by Lotto NZ, the winner and his partner headed into the supermarket to pick up their usual groceries – except the shop didn’t quite go to plan.

“We wandered around the supermarket, then got to the end and realised that we’d been pushing an empty trolley around for an hour. My mind was just gone, I couldn’t think of a single thing! So we called it quits and headed home to settle our nerves with a cup of tea and try and make sense of what had just happened.”

With the winnings now safely in his bank account, the winner is looking forward to doing some good with his prize.

“The first thing I want to do is help people – it’s a great feeling knowing that I’ll be able to help my family out,” said the winner.

“But otherwise I’m just going to take my time and make the winnings last.”

Saturday’s $7 million Powerball jackpot was shared by two lucky Lotto winners from Auckland and Christchurch, who each took home $3.8 million with Lotto Powerball.

The other winning ticket was sold at Avondale Foodmarket in Auckland.

ENDS

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