North's Lotto-winning streak continues with $5.3m Wellsford ticket

A ticket sold in Wellsford won $5.3 million in Lotto and Powerball on Wednesday.

Northland's amazing run of Lotto success has continued with a ticket sold in Wellsford winning $5.3 million on Wednesday.

The ticket, sold at Woody's Winners, earned its holder $333,333 in Lotto First Division and $5m in Powerball First Division on Wednesday while a ticket sold at Countdown Whangarei won $15,215 with Lotto Second Division in the same draw.

It's the latest in an incredible run of Lotto success for the region, which has now had 30 major prizes won since August 20 worth an amazing $14.4m in first and second division winners.

The streak also includes the rare event of two First Division Lotto-winning tickets sold at the same place for the same draw. Two Lotto First Division-winning tickets sold at Whangarei's Patel's Foodmarket, each won $166,667 in the December 11 draw.

And although Wellsford's $5.3m win had not been claimed by edition time yesterday, the two sold at Patel's had been - and it was the same person who won both. It's believed the wins were because the punter chose their own numbers on different lines with different Powerball numbers.

"While it's relatively unusual for one Lotto outlet to sell two First Division-winning tickets in the same draw, it does happen a couple of times a year," a Lotto spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said there have been two Powerball prizes won in two months in the Northland region - one from Whangarei and one from Wellsford on Wednesday.

"There has been an amazing streak of winning by Powerball players this year - 13 big winners in total, including three in the past two weeks," she said.

"Quite a few Northland Lotto players will have a little some extra to celebrate this Christmas thanks to picking up some big Lotto prizes in the last few months."