A million-dollar Lotto win has led Travis Hunwick on an unexpected and incredible journey of highs and lows. He tells his story to Carly Gibbs.
"Shit bro," Travis Hunwick's little brother said.
The numbered balls bounced, rolled, and then settled into perfect alignment.
It was Saturday night. It was Lotto. And a $15 ticket had just made Hunwick a millionaire.
There was yelping and wahoo-ing but no crack of a Moet cork.
"We were all completely bloody broke," Hunwick recalls, with irony. "No one had any money for alcohol that night. We were down to our last 20c."
Hunwick was the sole winner of a Lucky Dip Lotto draw in 2009, nabbing a cool $1 million. The ticket was bought by his brother as payback for Hunwick loaning cash for pizza the week before.
After circling the numbers alongside his brother and his brother's girlfriend, Hunwick slept with the daffodil-coloured ticket under his pillow until Monday.
"I'd only ever won one other thing in my life and that was a Father's Day raffle," he says.
When the million landed in his bank account, he and a crew went to a restaurant in Birkenhead, Auckland, and ordered one of every cocktail and one of every other alcoholic beverage on the drinks list. With glasses dominating the table and the party in full swing, the then 26-year-old toasted a new, easier life.
Three years on, life is indeed easier, but Hunwick hasn't been without hardships. He's lost friends, fallen out with the odd family member and learned money isn't everything.
At his modest Ohauiti home where he's lived for nearly 18 months, there is little that immediately indicates Hunwick is loaded.
Subtle signs of his wealth are the sapphire and diamond ring on his left pinky finger - a gift to himself last Christmas - and a fat silver watch on his right wrist.
In his double garage at the back of the property, alongside posters of scantily clad women, is a 2001 Nissan Silvia S15 and a 1970s maroon Holden Monaro, worth a combined $90,000.
His dogs Sook, an American bulldog, and Bounce, a samui, circle around his legs vying for attention. Also outside are Mr Finch, the pet bird, turtles and three cats.
Does he have at least half of his winnings left? "No, no. Hell no," he says, shaking his head.
"A million dollars, once you buy a house, and a couple of nice cars, and I've taken three years off (work) because I wanted to be involved quite heavily in my daughter's life. A lot of that money gets sucked through ... at the moment trying to find employment. I've got a little bit tucked away that I can't touch."
What he has spent his dosh on is this: he bought his first home in Glenfield, Auckland, for $380,000. Then sold it and bought another in Ohauiti, where he currently lives. He's spent $150,000 on cars (before Lotto he was a motorbike rider and only had a learner's licence for cars), $20,000 on 250-odd tropical fish and five tanks, and cleared a $30,000 debt for his brother and his girlfriend.
There's also been the odd jewellery purchase, a radio control collection of cars and helicopters, and extravagant treats.
Hunwick's age, body art, black singlets and souped-up cars have made him a magnet for the media although he says he's no "glory hound".
"When people ask, I've talked."
He's been on TV and featured in a That's Life magazine article and was paid $500, for which he tacked on another $50 and bought a $550, 700ml bottle of cognac.
"I couldn't even drink it, man. I had two or three nips out of it and it was too strong."
Adjusting to life as a millionaire has been an interesting experience. He wasn't working at the time of his win due to illness and suddenly having cash made him a unlikely big spender.
He initially went shopping for a Porsche with about "60,000 bucks" in his pocket but got a chilly welcome at the dealership. He puts it down to his "jeans and singlet" get-up. He settled on the Nissan and Holden Monaro but, in total, has had 15 cars in the past three years. He now has three cars. "I'm a car fiend man, I can't help it."
His vehicles have been legally modified but, since his shopping spree, he reckons he's been a target of suspicious police officers. Meet him in person and he hardly fits the persona of a trouble-maker. He's friendly, an animal lover and generous.
A good portion of his winnings has been spent on friends, who have benefited from his love of jewellery, in particular.
"I've spent so many thousands of dollars on female friends - $500 to $600 rings here and there just to make them smile, just to make them feel appreciated. People who have helped me out before I had money, people who have always been there."
He jokes that those at Michael Hill Jeweller "love me".
He shouted one mate a 10-day trip to Queenstown to accompany him and bought two other financially strapped friends cars.
It's been a fun ride but it hasn't been entirely easy.
Shortly after winning Lotto, Hunwick met a woman at a party, she became pregnant and they now have a daughter together. Hunwick has not had to forfeit half of his winnings but many others have hounded him for help.
"What I have now, I have to leave for my daughter. I've been given this awesome opportunity and this blessing really so I want to lock that down for her," he says.
"Winning Lotto is not an accomplishment, it's something that happens. It's not like you've gone out there and worked your arse off and you've gone out and earned or saved that money. So people, if they think they're more deserving, can get quite nasty.
"I did lose some friends who wanted more, and more, and more. And I just thought if you're going to want more money every time I come and see you, you're not my real mate, you know. So I cut a few people off." This includes some family members.
For those he helped out, there was an unappreciated delay in returning the favour.
"I lent people money and when people know you've got money, they think 'well, why should I pay him back?', so it just became really nasty."
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Despite having a healthy bank account, Hunwick, who has a new girlfriend, Vicki, says he hasn't changed personality-wise.
He still occasionally buys a Lotto ticket and amazingly has a friend in Auckland who has won Lotto twice - $4 million on Lotto and $14 million on Big Wednesday.
"I'm just exactly the same as I was. Some just have higher expectations of what I should be doing with the money. I don't have any regrets. I've lost a couple of tight friendships from people who have undervalued or under-appreciated what I've done for them and then demanded more, but at least it gave me that opportunity to figure out what people around me were like."
When it comes to the remainder of his winnings and his future, he plans to do a later-in-life OE and still has a small "nest egg" to fall back on.
He is happy with his lot. "A lot of people have said 'you've wasted the money' but I haven't wasted any money if I've gained something from that experience. I enjoy seeing my mates happy."
Tauranga's biggest Lotto win clocks in at number 10 in the list of Lotto's biggest prizes.
A lucky punter won $13.3 million in Powerball after buying a ticket from Bureta Superette in January 2008. Last year, the biggest win in the Western Bay was a Strike ticket bought at Greerton Lotto in June, which won its buyer $653,805.
A total of nearly $11 million in prizes was won in the Western Bay in 2010 - $8.9 million of it in Tauranga. In all, Western Bay punters spent more than $31 million on Lotto last year, compared with more than $33 million spent in 2009 and 2008.
A Katikati family who won $100,000 on Lotto's Winning Wheel say having an unexpected windfall makes life just that bit easier.
"We were quite happy with what we got. It's not enough to pay the mortgage off but we upgraded to a bigger boat and bought a new vehicle. The kids got a PlayStation 3 and our son got a little car," says the mother.
The family, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, say they still have just under half of their winnings left.
"We (plan) to take it as it comes and enjoy it, $100,000 in reality is not a lot. The average person's mortgage is more than $100,000."
Their advice to future winners is to sit back for a couple of months and think about what you intend to do with it.
"To think we got something out of Lotto was just amazing. Every now and then we (still) get a little collect."
Do they hold out hope for the big one, one day?
"Oh that would be nice but, hey, dreams are free."
One of Tauranga's richest men says if you do suddenly find yourself flush with millions one day, the first thing to do is "keep cool".
"There'll be 500,000 people telling you what to do," says self-made multimillionaire Bob Clarkson.
He says if you win the big one, take out $5000 for a "decent" party and celebrate accordingly, clear debt, and then leave the rest in the bank for 12 months in an interest-generating account while you "clear your head out".
Clarkson, who himself is a Lotto player, says he's yet to win the big one and jokes that when he does he hopes it'll at least be enough to lower his overdraft.
"If you're not in, you can't win. Set aside some money every week, let's call it an investment, don't call it gambling.
"Don't be in a hurry to tell the boss to get stuffed. Keep cool; act normal, I know it's going to be damn hard ... then come to Bob Clarkson and invest it.
"I advise for no cost because it's hard enough to get, without giving it away. Take advice from someone you can trust."
Clarkson's last piece of advice is: "If you're a 50-year-old man don't get the bright idea that a young bird is the right thing to do."
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Bob Clarkson - photo: File
Although it's hard to believe, some people have a meltdown when they become rich. Sudden financial freedom can weigh heavily and studies suggest people don't value windfalls as much as money earned.
Tauranga clinical psychologist Hans Laven says sudden wealth can cause stress as a major change brings numerous changes and "people underestimate that".
Laven says expectations that money make people happy are a "fallacy" - and just because they may be holidaying on the French Rivera doesn't mean they don't have to deal with the same miseries as everyone else.
Research shows happiness does not increase in equal measures as a blossoming bank account. "Your activities change but, deep down, your emotional state and feelings about life and the world, they're not going to change."
It can result in an "existential crisis" along the lines of: "If I still feel crap with all this money, there's no hope for me."
Laven says: "People who have money often find it hard to trust friends and partners believing the person is only seeing their money, and only likes them for their money."
Likewise, they could feel overwhelmed by people wanting money. "And it can reduce their faith in humankind in a sense of strangers wanting to (inundate) them with hard luck stories."
A practical danger of sudden wealth was alcohol and drug abuse because people could afford it.
In his book, Lotto, Long-drops and Lolly-scrambles: The Extraordinary Anthropology of Middle New Zealand, Victoria University anthropologist Peter Howland traces how Lotto has been worked in our psyche, teaming up with feel-good Kiwi ideals of egalitarianism, altruism and good times.
Lotto requires no skill and is open to anyone - the perfect level playing field. It's portrayed as good family fun and even those that don't gamble buy Lotto. If you don't win (which, let's face it, you've apparently got more chance of being hit by a tsunami), you can take comfort that the money's going to charitable causes. More than $3 billion that has been raised for community purposes since the first Lotto draw in 1987.
As well as promoting "utopian ideals of nationhood", Howland writes Lotto encourages the ideals of risk-taking and a belief in pure luck, rather than other forces, shaping our fortunes.
"Lotto promotes an atmosphere in which many of us believe a better life is only six numbers away and where critical analysis of the social, economic and political inequities that basically predetermine our lot is to be avoided."
British psychologist Richard Wiseman, who's studied the psychology of luck, has argued people would be better off cultivating strategies known to create good fortune in everyday life than buying lottery tickets. He's shown lucky people are more optimistic, confident, resilient and flexible.
Wiseman investigated the supposed superior Lotto luckiness of the Irish town of Skibbereen. He bought 50 tickets from there and 50 from Dublin, and won not a skerrick, concluding Skibbereen's winnings were down to chance alone or something paranormal.
In October last year, a pig hunter from Papakura won the country's biggest single Lotto prize of $28.7 million - a $36 million Big Wednesday prize won in June 2009 in Masterton went to a family syndicate of four people.
Experts advise big winners to take their time with spending.
Craigs Investment Partners head of private wealth research Mark Lister said paying debt should be the first priority.
NZ Lotteries also provides support for winners to help them cope with their newfound riches.
In September, New Zealand's luckiest Lotto winner said winning was extremely stressful and it took a year before she stopped shaking and looking over her shoulder.
In April last year, she won a total of $10.8 million with $9.7 million from Powerball first division and $1.05 million from Lotto first division.
She had previously won a few hundred thousand on Lotto first division, making her the winner of New Zealand's largest combined Lotto prize.
Her advice to anyone winning a large amount of money was to be careful. "Research everything."
She still played Lotto and Big Wednesday every week, and "you may think that having such a large amount of money would be the answer to everything ... it's not.
"It is extremely stressful especially when trying to remain anonymous. It took me a year to stop shaking and looking over my shoulder."
New Zealand Lotteries is not a registered financial adviser and cannot provide financial or legal advice to winners but it does provide them with a comprehensive advice book on the financial and emotional aspects of winning a large prize.
TO ENSURE you don't waste a big windfall, the best thing to do might be to call in an independent financial adviser.
G3 Financial Freedom director and authorised financial adviser Charlene Overell says the most common mistake people make is not getting qualified advice then jumping into spending "willy nilly".
Overell advises people to get financial advice from several sources before formulating a plan on how to deal with their new-found wealth. Likewise, those who find themselves unexpectedly rich, need legal advice about who owns the money and who will manage it.
When it comes to banking all that money, Overell recommends putting some in an on-call account and some on a short-term deposit.
"You don't want too long a term until you take some advice about money goals, including looking at your debt, and do you pay it now, or not."
Winning Lotto has come to symbolise the ultimate Kiwi dream: a remedy to all our misfortunes, deficiencies and frustrations - a VIP pass to the Good Life.
But Overell says the dream won't last forever if you're not prepared to pay for good financial advice around cash-flow management.
"We all have dreams of what we would do if we won Lotto and there's no reason not to do those things, but with some knowledge. If you're going to give up work, you're going to need to replace that income and it needs to be quality investment advice so it's going to give the right income for the rest of your life."
Overell recommends writing a wish list as well as goals for where you see yourself in the future. When it comes to your financial adviser and lawyer, she says there's no harm in shopping around and, under new legislation for financial advisers, there is a requirement for a once yearly review with clients.
"Ask questions and make sure you have a good professional relationship. There's no point paying for advice you're not going to take."