The young couple said they wanted to use the money to buy their first home and get involved in outreach work. Photo / File
The young couple said they wanted to use the money to buy their first home and get involved in outreach work. Photo / File
A young Auckland couple say they were "gobsmacked" after learning they had won $4.25 million on Lotto Powerball.
The man described the feeling of winning as the second best moment of his life, the first being seeing his wife walk down the aisle.
"I was so excited when I realisedwe had won, I had butterflies and I can only compare it to the feeling of seeing my wife walk down the aisle on our wedding day – obviously our wedding tops this… a little," he laughed.
The pair, who wish to remain anonymous, purchased the ticket on Saturday night before the wife left for a night shift.
Later that night, the man saw he had an email from Lotto NZ saying he had won a prize.
"I sent my wife a screenshot of the email and told her I wouldn't log in until she was home in the morning.
"When I arrived home the next morning, we sat down to breakfast and chatted about my shift before we even logged in to MyLotto to check our ticket! I think we both thought it was just a small prize," said the woman.
"We just kept seeing the numbers circle and then the winning music played – we were gobsmacked when we saw $4,250,000 stamped across the top of the ticket – we were so excited and overwhelmed that we both burst into tears," said the woman.
After finally managing to finish their breakfast, the couple spent the rest of their day thinking about how they would spend their winnings.
They said they wanted to buy their first home with their winnings, and help out their families. Once that is finished, they want to get involved in outreach work.
"We feel so fortunate to have won this prize and we want to make sure others benefit from it too."
This is the 15th Powerball First Division winner of 2022.
On Wednesday last week a player in Orewa, Auckland won $23m. The prize has since been collected, but no details have been released.