KEY POINTS:
As Lotto celebrates its 20th anniversary in New Zealand, we take a look at some of the biggest wins and strangest lottery stories from across the globe.
October 2005
Seventeen workers at an oil and gas company in central Alberta are winners of the biggest jackpot in
Canadian history, and will share $54,294,712.
That works out to $3,193,806.58 per winner.
The winners work at Viking Holdings in Sedgewick, Alta., just outside Camrose. Sedgewick has a population of about 900 and is about an hour's drive southeast of Edmonton.
August 2004
Proof that money can't buy you everything.
British woman Thea Bristow may have won $42 million, but all she really wants is to drive a soft-top Ford Streetka.
While she can afford to buy the compact car, she still has to pass her driver's licence before she can drive it.
March 2004
The man who won the largest lottery jackpot in US history had a run of bad luck: He was robbed twice and sued - all in one week.
Police said the business office of Jack Whittaker, who hit the US$314.9 million ($492.1 million) Powerball jackpot at Christmas 2002, was broken into and US$2000 was taken.
Two days later, Whittaker's vehicle at his home was broken into and property was stolen.
Earlier in the week, Whittaker was sued by an employee of the Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Centre, who alleged he assaulted her in March 2003.
September 2003
A Vancouver man went to court to have an 11-year-old winning lottery ticket dusted for fingerprints, hoping forensic tests would prove he was due the C$10 million ($12.6 million) prize that was awarded to his former neighbour more than a decade earlier.
Michael Ufnal filed a petition asking B. C. Lotteries to hand over the ticket to determine whether his fingerprints were still on it to allow him to claim the prize.
He said he bought the ticket at a local 7-Eleven on May 12, 1992, placed it in his wallet along with C$200 in cash, but lost the wallet soon afterwards.
The wallet was found by a nearby gas station attendant and returned to Ufnal after the draw but the cash and the ticket were missing.
A few days later, news reports identified his former neighbours William Conrad Loughlin, then 35, and his 27-year-old fiance Ingrid Valcic, as the prize winners.
May 2001
Richard Clark, 47, won $7.7 million on the British National Lottery but returned to work the following week.
Clark's job is neither glamorous nor easy. He works in the railway industry on new signalling applications, spending most of his time in front of a computer.
So why did he go back? "I'd experienced redundancy earlier in my career, when I didn't work for nine months. I really missed the social interaction, the light-hearted side. I think you need that. I also realised that I enjoyed my job."
