A Kawerau woman has recounted the moment she circled the numbers on her Lotto ticket and realised she had won a share of $55 million in the recent must-be-won Powerball jackpot.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, bought her ticket from New World Kawerau after joining the long line of people queuing for ticket, a statement from Lotto NZ said today.
“The queue was so long, and people were chatting about what they would do if they won,” she said in a statement today.
It wasn’t until early Monday morning that she started to believe she could be the holder of the very lucky ticket.
“I checked the Powerball first – because I knew I had number six – and that’s when I started to get an inkling it might be me. Then I circled the Lotto numbers on my ticket and saw I had all the other six numbers too.”
To steady her nerves, she went to have coffee with her mum and told her.
“I was in a bit of a daze and said, ‘Mum, I think I’m the big winner’, and she just cracked up laughing at me.”
The woman thought the best thing to do would be to head to a store to find out for sure.
“I handed it over to the operator and gave him a heads-up it might be a big prize.
“Then he just looked up at me with a big smile on his face, and that’s when I knew it was true.”
She joined two other players winning $18.3m each.
Later that evening, she invited some of her family over to share the good news.
“She didn’t say much on the phone – just to come over and that it was nothing bad. That’s when I started to wonder if she was the winner,” one of the woman’s children said.
“When we walked in, I asked what was going on, and Mum came over with a huge smile on her face. My partner asked, ‘have you won the Lotto or something’? And she just looked at us and said, ‘yes I have’.
“I’ll never forget that moment.”
“Sharing the news with my family was amazing and felt like such a weight had been lifted,” the woman said.
Over a week on from the big draw, Kawerau was still abuzz with talk of who the winner might be.
“It’s strange hearing people around town talking about the win and seeing it in the news.
“Every time I go out I just have to keep reminding myself, ‘I’m an ordinary person and this is an ordinary day’,” she said.
The woman has plans to help family and causes close to her heart.
“I’m looking forward to being able to help my family with this win and also have some charities I’d like to donate to, so I’m going to take some time to figure out the best way to do that,” she said.
New World Kawerau owner Clare Gallagher told Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge last week the town’s people were “really excited about some great news for Kawerau“.
The town, 100km southeast of Tauranga, has made headlines in the past for the wrong reasons, but the big win was the talk of the town and fireworks were set off soon after the draw on November 15.
“There was a lot of chatter for sure,” Gallagher said.
“There was a number of fireworks displays that apparently went off quite quickly after the draw, and some speculation around, ‘Did those people win? Was it them?’”.
She said customers had been coming into the supermarket and making comments such as “we’d know if it’s one of your team, they won’t turn up tomorrow” and “if we don’t see you back, we know it was you”.
It felt like half the town lined up to get a ticket on Saturday before the draw, she said.
“Thursday was just as busy. Some people trying to get in before the madness of Saturday and the terminal ran right up until cut off, which was pretty cool.”