Auckland Couple Claim $12.75 Million Prize

An Auckland couple is celebrating after sharing a lifechanging $25 million Powerball jackpot with another winner last weekend.

Saturday started off as normal for the pair, with the man buying a $12 ticket on MyLotto.

He says he plays in a unique way, sometimes tweaking the Powerball number on his ticket to one of his preferred numbers.

“Powerball number 3 cropped up twice, so I didn’t change it the second time – and that’s the line we won on,” said the man.

As he logged in and started watching the virtual draw play out on their ticket later that night, he realised something extraordinary was unfolding.

“I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed when I suddenly heard him shouting my name,” said the woman.

“Then he appeared in the doorway as calm as anything, saying ‘I think we’ve won Powerball.’”

“I wasn’t sure it was real, even after seeing the amount at the top of the ticket – I said ‘we need to ring Lotto and check!’”

The man believed it instantly though. “I’ve been buying tickets for a long time, so I knew what I was looking at and I knew it had to be real,” he said.

After a couple of days of keeping it to themselves, they gathered their children to share the news.

“I’d seen them since they found out and they didn’t say a word – they had great poker faces!” said one of the children.

“So when Mum got in touch to say they were coming over to talk to us, I thought something was wrong.

“But then she followed it up with a message saying ‘and then we’ll all go out for dinner,’ with a jazz hands emoji, so that calmed me down a bit.”

After receiving his invite for ‘a chat’, one of their other children had begun to suspect something.

“It didn’t sound like bad news when Mum was telling me to come over, and coincidentally I’d just checked my own ticket and hadn’t won, so it made me think that perhaps they were wanting to tell us they were the winners,” he said.

On the way to their daughters’ place to meet with their family, the couple stopped at the supermarket for a bottle of champagne to toast their win with.

“I snuck it in with me, and I pulled it out when we told them,” she laughed.

The family had a glass of champagne together and then went out for dinner to celebrate – a moment they say they’ll remember forever.

Now that the win has sunk in a bit more, the couple are looking forward to helping their children and grandchildren and also planning a holiday or two in the future.

Notes:

• The winning Powerball tickets were both sold on MyLotto for the draw on Saturday 28 March.
• Each $12.75 million prize is made up of $12.5 million from Powerball First Division and $250,000 from Lotto First Division.
• These winners would like to remain anonymous and do not wish to provide any further comment at this stage.

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