Forget traffic jam woes, it was traffic jam joy for a couple from Whangarei this week, when a chance ticket check revealed their $1.2 million Lotto Strike win.
The winners, who wish to remain anonymous, were driving home from work when they made the million-dollar discovery. Faced with bumper-to-bumper queues, they decided to pull over and popped into a nearby store to check their ticket.
"The Lotto machine made a funny noise,"the stunned wife said.
"We couldn't believe it when the store operator told us we'd won - we thought she'd said we'd done something wrong."
"It's the biggest surprise of our lives - we were totally gobsmacked. We must have looked like we'd been slapped round the face."