Two Taranaki Lotto winners

Two Lotto players who bought tickets in Taranaki are among 40 who took out first division.

A player who bought their ticket at Stratford’s Paper Plus and one who bought theirs at New Plymouth’s Mainly Magazines were among the winners – the most in the games’ 30-year-history.

The 40 winners will take home $25,000 each.

Wednesday’s winning numbers were 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 and bizarrely it meant the five people who won second division ($27,431) walked away with a bigger prize than those who won what should have been the top prize.

Retail assistant at Paper Plus Stratford Lani Maritz said a lady had popped by this morning to tell the store her good news.

‘‘One of our customers came in and told us she had won it,’’ she said. The lady will be claiming her money tomorrow.

Maritz said the fact 40 people have won wasn’t unlucky at all but instead beneficial.

‘‘That’s 40 families that are benefiting from it,’’ she said.

Owner of New Plymouth’s Mainly Magazines Wendy Marshall said no-one had come to claim the prize yet.

She said it wasn’t unlucky but instead unusual for that many people to win first division.

‘‘They’ve won, so that’s lucky but it’s certainly unusual to have that many first division winners.’’

‘‘But $25,000 is still a lot of money, it can be quite life changing.’’

Two of the lucky first division 40 struck it big – picking up a $2.5 million Powerball prize on top of the $25,000.

The winning Powerball tickets were sold at Countdown Hastings and New Brighton Lotto & Discounter in Christchurch.