2020 - year of Covid lockdowns, social distancing and apparently missing millionaires. That’s according to Lotto, who revealed that seven winners took a week or more to come forward despite winning millions.
Marie Winfield, Lotto’s head of communications, said big winners typically claim their winnings with 24 hours.
“But what was really unique about 2020 is that we had to try and track a couple of winners down. Fortunately, we found them, or they eventually came forward on their own, and they now have a lot more zeros in their bank balance,” Winfield said.
“Funnily enough, most of them completely forgot they had even bought a ticket, or simply didn’t entertain the fact that they could have won.”
A person who won $17.1 million early in the year left the ticket they bought in The Market Store in Twizel for over three weeks.
“I needed some time to process things. Once I heard about the big win, I checked my ticket and couldn’t believe it when I saw I had all of the numbers,” the person said.
“I had to re-check the ticket multiple times before I was convinced that I had won – and even then, I kept going back and looking at the ticket to make sure I had got it right. I just couldn’t believe it.”
In November, Lotto NZ had to approach a Morrinsville man to tell him they thought he’d won the $5.5 million.
The winner was completely oblivious that he had been driving around with a multi-million dollar winning ticket in his car for nearly a month.
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