A Wellington couple has struck it lucky after taking home a $400,000 prize with Strike Four earlier this week.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, woke up early on Thursday morning and decided to quickly check his emails as he got ready for the day.

“I saw that I had an email from Lotto NZ saying I had a prize to claim and immediately thought – sweet! I figured I must have won something a little over $1,000 to get this special email,” explained the man.

“I buy a Triple Dip most weeks so had no idea if I’d won something with Lotto, Powerball or Strike – a big win never even crossed my mind to be honest!”

“My wife was still asleep, so I waited for her to wake up so we could check the tickets together. The moment she opened her eyes I raced over and said ‘we’ve won a something on our Lotto tickets!’,” laughed the man.

But rather than checking the ticket, the lucky couple decided to let the excitement build a little bit more and check the results page on MyLotto to see what prizes had been won on Wednesday night – all without knowing that their ticket was the luckiest of them all.

“There were so many different prizes – we started scrolling down the page and saw prizes from $2,000 or so all the way up to $400,000. When I saw the Strike Four prize I thought ‘wow, imagine if it was that one’, but didn’t really give it much thought,” said the man.

Still sitting in bed, the couple opened the Lotto NZ App to check their tickets and find out just how lucky they had become.

“When the prize popped up on the screen my wife said, ‘oh awesome – we’ve won $400’… that’s when I told her she might want to check those 0’s again,” laughed the man.

“We were a bit stunned after realising we’d won $400,000 – we sat there staring at the screen in disbelief. It was the most surreal moment, we’ll never forget it.”

With the winnings now safely in their bank account, the lucky couple are looking forward to planning for their future.

“We are still absolutely buzzing! This win is going to make such a difference to our family – I’m really looking forward to paying off the mortgage!” said the man.

The winning Strike Four ticket was sold on MyLotto to a player from Wellington.

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