Their prize is the fifth-equal largest Powerball prize.
The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, now plan to go to work on Monday as normal.
The couple buy a Lotto combo ticket every week, but this week the husband urged his wife to buy an extra Powerball ticket for the must-be-won draw. It was this extra purchase that won them the big prize.
The winners had planned to watch the live draw, but lost track of time and only realised at 8.05 pm that they had missed the results. They then found the winning numbers online at the MyLotto website.
“We were then in shock, we must have checked those numbers about 10 times,” the wife said.
“It didn’t seem real, we had been joking all Saturday about what we would do if we won, and now we actually had! Now all those things we talked about doing are actually possible, like buying a business so we don’t have to work for anyone anymore, looking after the kids’ futures, helping out family and charities and taking off on some overseas trips. This will set us up for life.
“We've been on the bones of our arses forever, and have never won anything before, so this win is just magic – but very hard to take in.”
The wife kept the winning ticket in the drawer of her bedside cabinet, before they officially claimed at a Lotto retail store. “We drove a while to another town, hoping that no one would recognise us,” they joked. Their ticket was validated in a Lotto store in Waipawa on Sunday.
The couple purchase their tickets in a range of stores and it was just chance that they made this week’s purchase at New World Dannevirke. “We like to think that small towns are luckier though,” they said.
The couple are now looking forward to getting some sleep. “We didn’t sleep a wink all Saturday night,” they said. “We just kept tossing and turning as we couldn’t believe that we had won.”
The other winning $17.7 million Powerball ticket for Saturday’s record draw was sold at Take Note Dinsdale in Hamilton. As yet, this winner has not yet come forward to claim their prize.
