New Millionaires Receive Red Carpet for Winning the New Zealand Powerball
As reported by other sources, these couples didn’t even know that they had won a whopping amount of $15 million a week prior to their lunch date with their friends. It was during this lunch that their friends prompted them to check the ticket to see if they had won anything. And guess what, they had – a staggering amount of $NZ16.2 million ($15 million!).
The ticket was purchased from a Countdown supermarket and earlier this month, the happy couple went to claim their big Powerball prize. As soon as the draw was complete and millionaires had emerged, the entire city was anxious to find out who the new millionaires were!
Here’s what one of the winners said,
“I was out for lunch with a couple of mates when one of them mentioned the big Powerball win. I hadn’t even heard the jackpot had been won until then.”
When the friends gathered for lunch they were all discussing about the $15 million prize money from the New Zealand Powerball and this is when the winner realized that he too had bought his ticket from Countdown Hamilton – the same store that had sold the winning New Zealand Powerball lottery ticket.
“When I mentioned it, they joked, ‘Are you the winner?’. I just laughed and said ‘there’s no way it could be me – I haven’t even looked at my ticket!'”
As soon as the winner got home, he decided to check his ticket, just in case, because after all he did buy it from the same store that sold the winning ticket.
“I circled the numbers off one by one, and slowly realized that I had all the winning numbers on the same line. I was absolutely stunned – I just couldn’t believe it.”
As soon as they realized that they had won, they immediately drove from Hamilton to collect their fortune from Lotto New Zealand’s head office in Auckland – safeguarding their ticket until they reached their destination.
“I put the ticket safe and sound in a little bag and made sure I had it on me at all times – until I’d claimed that prize.”