Two friends from Northland who have played Lotto together for 16 years say it was "such a shock" to win $1 million on a bonus ticket.
The winning $1 million Lotto first division ticket was sold at Woolworths Kerikeri for the draw on Wednesday, October 14.
The pair, who wanted to remain anonymous, scored their prize on a bonus ticket they’d won in the draw on October 10.
The ticket spent days pinned to a noticeboard before one of the women took it home to check.
She scanned it using the ticket checker on the MyLotto app, and a 'major prize' message appeared.
"That's when I thought 'far out – we could have won something big here'.
"My heart was pumping and all I could think was that I needed to call my friend."
She was unaware that there had been a big win in Northland, and not wanting to get ahead of herself, she checked the numbers before calling her friend.
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"There they all were, all lined up one after the other. Then I checked how many winners there were – just one winner of $1 million. It was such a shock."
She called her friend, prompting screams down the phone as the other half of the two-person syndicate learnt what they had won.
"She had me on speakerphone, so I told her husband to make her a cuppa to help her calm down," she laughed.
A couple of days later, the friends went into a store to claim their prize.
"It didn't feel real until that point. When we saw that little slip of paper with $1,000,000 on it – well, seeing is believing."
The friends were looking forward to helping their families – and for one of them, a trip to Europe was also on the cards.
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