A young couple from North Auckland celebrated their $4.3 million Lotto win with champagne and takeaways.
The Hibiscus Coast couple, who wished to remain anonymous, occasionally played Lotto and had forgotten about last Wednesday's draw until the following evening when they were relaxing after work.
“We finally sat down at the end of the day to watch our programme, and I saw an advert for Powerball being $4 million, so I said to my partner, ‘Oh, it must have been won on Wednesday – I wonder who won it.’ Not in a million years thinking it would be us,” the man said.
After logging into MyLotto while watching TV, the man soon realised he’d purchased the winning ticket.
He said: “I jumped up off the sofa and shouted, ‘It’s us! We’ve won!’”
On the other hand, his partner was much more reserved.
“I just kept thinking it couldn’t be true. I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” the woman said.
After having the ticket confirmed by a family member, the couple shared the news with their parents.
“They all know what this means for us and our future, so it felt great to share it with them,” the man said.
Later on, they all got together to celebrate with champagne and takeaways.
“It’s funny, we stopped at the shop to buy some champagne, but we’ve only ever bought a $20 bottle of prosecco, so I was quite overwhelmed trying to decide what to buy,” joked the man.
“He came running back out to the car saying, ‘I don’t know what to buy, what’s the budget?’” the woman laughed.
The win still felt “surreal” to the couple.
“On Saturday morning, we still got up, put on our Crocs, grabbed a coffee and took the dog out as normal – it just doesn’t feel real. I don’t think I’ll fully believe it until I see it in the bank,” the man said.
The couple planned to pay off their mortgage and finish renovating their home with the winnings.
“We’re well overdue a new car so we’ll be doing that sooner than we had planned,” the man said.
“We also have family overseas, so this means we can visit them a bit more regularly now too.”
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