Bay of Plenty woman celebrates $500,000 Lotto NZ Strike win with family lunch in town

A Bay of Plenty woman bought her winning Strike ticket at Matatā Superfoods.

She bought her ticket after work. Later that night, she found out she won $500,000.

Last week, a Bay of Plenty woman was pleasantly surprised to find the ticket she bought at Matatā Superfoods was the winning Strike ticket.

Alongside her winning ticket, there were big Lotto wins spread around the region after last week’s Must Be Won draw.

A winning First Division ticket was sold at Four Square Te Puke, with the lucky player pulling in $125,000 after eight people split $1 million nationwide.

A Paraparaumu player struck Powerball, winning $37,125,000 - the largest draw this year and the fourth-highest in New Zealand’s history.

Thirty-two players nationwide won $17,094 with Lotto Second Division in last night’s draw.

Locally, winning tickets were sold Bayfair Lotto in Mount Maunganui, and two were sold via MyLotto in Tauranga and in the wider Bay of Plenty.

A winning ticket was also sold at New World Whangamatā.

The woman, who spoke to Lotto NZ on the condition of anonymity, is a regular player who bought a Strike ticket upon finishing work last Wednesday after seeing it was a Strike Must Be Won draw that evening.

She checked her app later that night and found out she won, Lotto NZ said in a statement.

She was “really happy”.

She started circling the numbers on her ticket against the Strike numbers, before calling out to her husband: “We haven’t won $37 million, but look at this!”

She said he was confused so they rang their daughters, who were “more excited than we were”.

Despite their excitement, the daughters thought the couple were pulling a prank.

“We had to send them a photo of our ticket.”

The woman claimed her prize the next day, saying they were “a bit nervous” about leaving it at home.

Once she claimed the prize, she treated her family to an “awesome lunch” in town.

The woman said they would keep working and planned to use the cash to support their whānau before putting most of the money away for retirement.

The other winning $500,000 Strike ticket was sold on MyLotto to a player from Dunedin.