Summer arrived a month early for a West Auckland couple last year after a trip to the beach on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula.
By chance, the pair stopped at the Gulf Harbour Four Square on the way home and purchased a Lotto ticket.
It was while he was out grocery shopping the next day that the man checked their ticket, only for the Lotto operator to pull him aside and say: "Your life has just changed forever".
But staying put also paid off from time to time.
In 2018, a Wellington player had plans to travel north one weekend but traffic chaos on State Highway 1 forced him to change his mind.
Purchasing a Lotto ticket alongside some groceries at Countdown Newton, the decision to stay put in Wellington proved life-changing.
A few days later the man was $1m richer after winning Lotto First Division.
Elsewhere, a spur-of-the-moment stopover at Woodys Winners while returning home from holiday paid off for one Auckland man.
No matter your plans, maybe it's a good idea to buy a Lotto ticket as these Kiwis did. Photo / Supplied
But it was not until he saw a post on social media that the man remembered to check his ticket on Saturday night.
"I was sitting on the couch about to go to bed when I saw on Facebook that Woodys had sold the big one - which got me a bit excited," he said.
"When I saw all the numbers on the first line, I thought 'no way, this can't be real'."
Yesterday, Lotto's head of communications and corporate social responsibility Marie Winfield said ticket sales were skyrocketing.
"It's too early to say what the number of tickets sold [tonight] will be, but we're expecting quite a big increase from last Saturday," she said.
"The number of tickets sold for the Saturday 15 February and Wednesday 19 February draws have been approximately 1.2 million and 1.1 million respectively."
