Hunt for $250,000 Lotto ticket

From left clockwise: Ashvin and Yogita Patel, Kim Wadsworth, Dion Wilson, Gail Battensby and Carrisa Flavell. Photos / John Stone

There are many kinds of Lotto winners at Ruawai.

There's butcher Dion Wilson, who won $26 with the first Lotto ticket he bought and quit while he was ahead, never buying another.

There's hairdressing salon operator Carrisa Flavell who won $428,500 in Lotto in 1999 and has a horoscope saying she's due for another windfall.

And there's the mystery person who bought a Lotto Wishlist Triple Dip ticket from the Ruawai Four Square store in November last year and hasn't claimed the $250,000 prize.

Store owners Ashvin and Yogita Patel and most others in Ruawai had believed the Wishlist ticket had been cashed in at Dargaville long ago.

So there was intense interest among the 400 inhabitants of the town - a dairying and kumara industry servicing centre beside the Northern Wairoa River 30km south of Dargaville - when they were told the Lotteries Commission had verified the $250,000 was still up for grabs.

Ruawai Hotel barmaid Kim Wadsworth had a hunt through her handbag to make sure sure she didn't have the winning ticket.

Pharmacy assistant Gail Battensby was certain she hadn't bought a Wishlist ticket, but the news the $250,000 hadn't been claimed reminded her to check another Lotto ticket she had got recently.

Dion Wilson said he would be telling his parents, Wayne and Carol Wilson, to go through tickets they had bought to make sure they hadn't overlooked the big winner.

Carrisa Flavell said she would check in a cupboard where she tucked away Lotto tickets and see if her horoscope was on the money.

Explaining her $428,500 win 11 years ago, Carrisa said she had bought two Lotto tickets in Dargaville and invited her mother-in-law, Thelma Flavell, to have one of them, and she had taken the wrong one.

This disclosure caused much mirth in the hairdressing salon because Thelma was there having her hair done.

She got one back by pointing out the shabby condition of Carrisa's ute, parked outside with a flat rear tyre.

The Ruawai $250,000 has joined $9 million in a Lotteries Commision account for Lotto prizes unclaimed between July last year and March 10 this year - part of a total of $61.75 million in prizes unclaimed since July 2005.

Ticket holders have 12 months from the date of the draw of their ticket to claim prizes.

The commission only keeps records of where unclaimed first division and special promotion winning Lotto tickets were bought.

The $250,000 Ruawai winner was the only big unclaimed Northland ticket up to March 10.

But when commission official Kate Richards checked more recent top prizes she found an Easter Nest Egg promotion ticket sold at Pak 'N Save Kaitaia on April 3 had won $10,000 which was still unclaimed.

"It looks like Northland people are particularly good at claiming their prizes," she said.

More recently two winning tickets in the Lotto Mother's Day promotion at the weekend were bought in Northland - one from Paihia Four Square and the other from Civic Video Kerikeri.

Each won the choice between a Mercedes-Benz SLK350, a Mustang GT Coupe, or $120,000 in cash.

The Paihia ticket's prize was claimed on Monday, and the Kerikeri prize was claimed yesterday.