The New Plymouth man who won Saturday night's $24 million Lotto jackpot celebrated with "a spicy takeaway and a couple of beers".
A regular player, the man only realised he'd won when he checked his ticket yesterday.
"I opened the pantry to decide what I wanted to eat and noticed my ticket sat there, so I thought it would be a good time to check it," he said. "I saw I had all the numbers…and then the Powerball, number five jumped out at me."
He drove to the Lotto store to check his ticket, spotting a sign in the window with the re-set jackpot of $4m.
"That's when it started to feel real," he said.
"I handed my ticket over and the lady put it through the machine. Without even saying anything she showed me the prize on the little print out and smiled – I didn't know what to think!
"I think I was so focused on filling in the paperwork and making sure it was confirmed that my mind couldn't really process that I had won $24 million – the odds are so low, I kept thinking, how jammy is that!"
He went home for a while to think about the win, but then headed back into town for lunch.
"It was a funny drive, I passed some lovely houses and thought 'I could buy one of those right now'.
"Same with car showrooms, I've never been the kind of person to want extravagant things – it's not me, but I just kept thinking how nice it would be to drive around in a flashy red sports car," he said.
Instead, the lucky winner got a quick bite to eat, did some work at home, and then made his first big purchase as a multimillionaire: "A spicy takeaway and a couple of beers...it felt good to relax for a bit."
He plans to spend the money on travel and, further down the line, property.
"I'm going to book myself a holiday somewhere warm and sandy."
The winning ticket was sold at Bell Block Supermarket in New Plymouth.
It's the second largest prize won this year, and the twelfth-largest Powerball win ever.
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