An Auckland man described the feeling of winning a $4.25 million Powerball prize as the second-best moment of his life – the best moment being watching his wife walk down the aisle.

“I was so excited when I realised we had won, I had butterflies and I can only compare it to the feeling of seeing my wife walk down the aisle on our wedding day – obviously our wedding tops this… a little,” he laughed.

The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, are regular players but have only started using MyLotto to buy their ticket in the last few weeks.

“My wife was heading to work a night shift on Saturday, so we were just relaxing before she left and I remembered I hadn’t bought a ticket for the draw, so I jumped online and bought one.”

Later that night, the man saw he had an email from Lotto NZ saying he had won a prize.

“I sent my wife a screenshot of the email and told her I wouldn’t log in until she was home in the morning.”

“When I arrived home the next morning, we sat down to breakfast and chatted about my shift before we even logged in to MyLotto to check our ticket! I think we both thought it was just a small prize,” said the woman.

The pair then logged in and watched as each number on their ticket began to circle.

“We just kept seeing the numbers circle and then the winning music played – we were gobsmacked when we saw $4,250,000 stamped across the top of the ticket – we were so excited and overwhelmed that we both burst into tears,” said the woman.

After filling in the online Prize Claim Form, and finally managing to finish their breakfast, the couple spent the rest of their day thinking about how they would spend their winnings.

“We would love to buy our first home, go travelling, and help our families. Once all that is sorted, we would like to get involved in some outreach work. We feel so fortunate to have won this prize and we want to make sure others benefit from it too.”

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