A local Pōkeno family has claimed their whopping $42 million Lotto Powerball winnings , only realising they had won the big prize after reading the news.
The winners, who want to remain anonymous, have pledged to put the money towards supporting their community.
"Not only will we be able to help out the kids, but we’ll also be able to help the people around us," they said.
"We love where we live and are looking forward to being able to help out and support local businesses.”
The female family member first thought "good on them" after hearing the large prize had been won on Thursday morning.
It wasn't until she saw the ticket was bought at Countdown Pōkeno that she decided to check her ticket.
"I genuinely never imagined I’d have the winning ticket, but the article was enough to make me fish my wallet out of my bag and check my ticket," she said.
“I don’t know why, but that one line of my ticket stood out to me from the moment I started checking – I barely even looked at the other lines, the winning numbers almost seemed to jump out at me. ”
It's the second-biggest Lotto prize ever won in New Zealand after a Hibiscus Coast couple walked away with $44 million in 2016.
After checking the results on MyLotto, the woman waited until her husband came inside to share the good news.
“I’d barely stepped inside when she raced over and blurted out ‘we’ve just won $42 million with Powerball’ – it took a second or two to get my head around what she had said,” laughed the husband.
The couple says they feel "incredibly lucky" to have won, with the prize helping them to plan ahead.
“Even now, it feels unreal – it’s a lot to get our heads around," said the woman.
"We feel incredibly lucky and want to take some time to really think things through and make sure we have a good plan in place to set our family up for the future."
With a population around 3320, the Waikato town was abuzz on Thursday after hearing that the big prize had been won at Countdown Pōkeno.
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