Lotto wheel takes 1000th spin

The first Lotto presenters, Doug Harvey and Ann Wilson, who reigned from July 1987 to April 1988.

Some see it as a tax on the poor and gullible. For others it's a light at the end of the toil, a regular Saturday night vice with the potential to put an end to all financial woes.

But whatever your opinion on Lotto, which celebrates its 1000th draw tonight, it is fair to assume the vast majority of people have at least imagined - as the adverts suggest - what they would do with the cash if their numbers came up.

Despite the fact that you're more likely to die in a car crash than win Lotto, the romance of an unexpected windfall has kept the punters returning since New Zealand's first draw in 1987.

Imagining the joy these vast riches would bring is all most ever get to do. But what about the rare few whose numbers are actually crossed off? How has Lady Luck affected their lives?

Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it certainly buys you a better class of misery (as well as a better class of enemy).

Certainly for a Mosgiel couple who won first division four years ago - and did not wish to be named - having an extra $1.3 million in the coffers has been a mixed blessing.

On the positive side, the win has "sped up the process" of achieving their goals, allowing them to travel extensively overseas and move to a new house and meaning they can work "because they want to, not because they have to".

"If you invest the winnings wisely, work is just for play money," the male winner says. "Why do we work? To keep us out of the pub. It gives you something to do. The ones who decide to retire after winning Lotto usually last a year before they end up going back to work."

But the green-eyed monster can be a nasty beast.

"It's a double-edged sword, definitely. It's human nature for everyone to want what the Joneses have got," he says. "When we see people win we have the feeling that we feel sorry for them."

As for giving any of the funds away, he says: "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't."

The communications Manager at the New Zealand Lotteries Commission, Gabi Tankersley, says the positives certainly outweigh the negatives for winners.

"We tell them not to change their life around too much," she says. "Just accentuate the things they already love doing, because that's when people enjoy the money the most."

Although no formal counselling is offered to winners, Mrs Tankersley says the Lotteries Commission "gives them advice on getting advice".

"The first thing most winners say is that they want to help out their family. It's quite a Kiwi thing to do. Our winners are generally down-to-Earth, and although they might buy themselves a couple of treats, they usually pay off their mortgages, set up a trust fund for their families or invest it."

Bruce Walker, 63, who took home a first division prize of more than $250,000 in 1991, certainly fits this brief.

He paid off his mortgage, bought a new tractor, built a woolshed on his Otago farm and helped out his family. But unlike many winners, he never tried to keep his hefty windfall a secret. On the Monday after the draw, before he took his winning ticket to the Lotto shop where he bought it, he decided to pick up half a dozen bottles of wine and a bunch of flowers to surprise the owner.

Later that week he shouted a few friends out for a big meal and asked his boss at the Kaikorai milk treatment station, where he had worked for 37 years, if it was all right for him to "put on a few flagons - well, kegs - and some nibbles" for his workmates.

"I would wish it on anybody," he says. "It never changed me one bit. It helped me out, no doubt about that. I could get on with things that I would have had to wait on. So it's definitely been a good experience."

But for all his lottery luck, he has also had to suffer through what would have to rank as the worst nightmare of any committed Lotto gambler.

"I've missed one draw since the win," he says.

His watch had stopped and "it was too late to go into town and get the Lotto tickets for my mother and I ... Yeah, the numbers did come up. Now that's Murphy's Law for you!"

Michelle Blampied spun the Lotto wheel last November and took home $1 million but, like Mr Walker, says she hasn't changed one iota.

"I've done nothing different. I won it on the Saturday and came to work at the Mosgiel Mitre 10 store on the Monday. I still do the housework and go to the pub to see my friends. The only thing I've done is get my eyes lasered."

Forget the new Ferraris and one-year benders in the Caribbean, Mrs Blampied says most of the money has been invested and, like most winners, used "to see her family right".

"Pretty boring, eh? I should've told you that before you came out.

"Everyone's been really good to me. I haven't had anyone say anything bad - to my face, at least. People told me to expect it, but I've never had anybody looking for handouts."

As her prize was won on live television, anonymity was never an option, and it probably didn't help that she already knew everyone in Mosgiel.

"Two weeks prior to winning I told my husband Chris that I was going to get to spin that wheel," she says. "He didn't believe me."


Luck of the draw

Lotto has created 325 millionaires, Powerball 61 millionaires, and Strike eight millionaires.

3748 players have won Lotto first division, Powerball first division or Strike, with 149 million winners overall and $4.65 billion handed out from the Lotto family.

The biggest number of people to win first division in one draw is 38, and the biggest number of people to win Lotto second division is 186. The smallest number of people to win second division is two.

The largest combined prize won by a single ticket is $17.99 million, sold in May 2006, in Kaeo, Northland. The ticket won $17.7 million on Powerball division one, and $290,000 on Lotto division one.

Over half of each week's Lotto tickets are bought on a Saturday and, of these, around 25 per cent are bought between 5pm and 7pm.

At the first draw, there were 440 Lotto retailers. At draw number 1000, there will be 880. About 50 retailers from around the country have been there from the start.


And the odds are ...

Division one (six balls): one in 3,838,380. First division plus Powerball is one in 30,707,040.

Division two (five balls and the bonus): one in 639,730. Second division plus Powerball is one in 5,117,840.

Division three (five balls): one in 19,386. Third division plus Powerball is one in 155,086.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES