$42m win: Couple check for ‘mistake’

A Po¯keno couple who won $42 million from a single Lotto ticket ‘‘had no idea’’ they were winners until Thursday morning.

The winners, who want to remain anonymous, had seen the news online about the Lotto win before checking their ticket.

‘‘My first thought was: good on them,’’ the woman said.

The winning ticket was sold at Countdown in Po¯ keno, a small town in North Waikato.

‘‘I genuinely never imagined I would have the winning ticket but the article was enough to make me fish my wallet out of my bag and check my ticket.’’ When she realised she had the winning numbers, she said she did not know what to do and was sure she must have made some sort of mistake.

It is the second-largest amount of money won through Lotto in New Zealand. The biggest Powerball Lotto win was $44m in 2016.

The woman said she put the ticket back in her pocket and waited for her husband to come in from gardening. He said that as soon as he stepped into the house, she raced to tell him they had won $42m.

‘‘It took a second or two to get my head around what she had said.

‘‘She handed me the ticket and asked me to check it as well, just to make sure,’’ he said.

‘‘I checked it, then checked it again – and again. But no matter how many times I checked the ticket I kept getting the same thing. I could not believe what I was seeing.’’

The couple said the win still ‘‘felt unreal’’ but they had started planning for the future.

‘‘It is a lot to get our heads around. We feel incredibly lucky and want to take some time to really think things through and make sure we have a good plan in place to set our family up for the future,’’ the woman said.

The money would make a real difference, both to her family and the community, she said.