Auckland Family Claims $44.67m – Largest Prize In Lotto NZ History

An Auckland family are still in complete shock after winning Lotto NZ’s largest ever prize of $44.67 million last weekend.

On Saturday night it looked as though the epic win was first equal with the $44.06m win from 2016. However, it soon became clear that the family had taken out the top spot. They’d done this by playing ten lines of the same Lotto numbers, each with a different Powerball number (one through to ten), which meant in addition to winning $44 million with Powerball First Division, they also won ten shares of Lotto First Division – a total of $666,670.

“Just imagine if you had all six Lotto numbers not the Powerball. We didn’t want to miss out so that’s why we play this way,” said the woman’s son.

The family, who wish to remain anonymous, have been playing since Lotto began in 1987, and have been using a combination of special numbers on their ticket for the last few years.

The family buy their ticket via a subscription, so they’re always in to win. After watching Saturday night’s draw, the woman texted her daughter telling her one person had won the huge jackpot.

“Then when I was looking at the numbers I thought ‘do you know, I think I might have a few of these.’

“I texted my daughter again to say I thought we had won something, and the more I looked at the numbers, the more familiar they looked.”

“I’d forgotten my password for my MyLotto account so I had to reset it before I could check,” laughed the woman.

Once she logged in, the virtual draw played, and her numbers circled one by one until her entire ticket turned blue, with all the numbers on every line highlighted*, and the winning music playing.

“I was in complete shock. I said to myself ‘I don’t believe it!’ You never think it’s going to happen to you, so it’s hard to get your head around.

“I told my daughter, and then I called my son to tell him.

“He didn’t believe me, so I had to send them both a screenshot to prove it,” she laughed.

“We all jumped on a group video call, and we just kept saying ‘no way, it can’t be real, we don’t believe it.’”

The next day, the family met up and went out for dinner to celebrate their amazing win.

“It was surreal, we could hear people in the restaurant talking about the $44 million prize, and I can remember saying in a hushed voice ‘if only they knew,’” said the son.

With their prize safely claimed, the family are going to take some time to let the magnitude of their win sink in before making any big decisions, but already have a few ideas of what they’d like to do.

“We’re a hard-working family but my children owning their own homes has always been just out of reach, so first of all, I’d like to get them into homes of their own, which will be really special,” said the woman.

And down the track, a family holiday is in order.

“I’ve only ever been overseas on a work trip, so we’re looking forward to a family holiday,” she said.

“We have some destinations in mind that have been ‘bucket list’ places – but only of our dreams, as we never thought it would be possible… and now it is,” said the daughter.

Their community means a lot to the family, and they have always been involved in fundraising, community fun days and the like. They say they are looking forward to continuing to give back.

“It means such a lot to us to be able to give back, so we will find ways to do that where we can, and have some ideas in mind already,” said the woman.

*See accompanying image.

Notes

• The winning $44,666,670 million Powerball ticket was sold on MyLotto for the draw on Saturday 10 August.
• The prize is made up of $44 million from Powerball First Division and $666,670 from Lotto First Division.
• This is largest prize ever won on a single ticket in Lotto NZ history.
• This is the fourteenth Powerball winner of 2024 so far.
• The winners would like to remain anonymous and do not want to provide any further comment at this stage.
• An image of the winning ticket is attached for your use.

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