Kids’ names key to big win

Prizemoney of $50,000 in radio station ZM’s contest won by mum using special trick

New Zealand radio station ZM has been running its “Five on Time” competition for the past six weeks, with ZM hosts Carl Fletcher, Vaughan Smith and Hayley Sproull inviting listeners to try their luck.

The goal was to hit the five-second mark exactly. Starting at $5000, the prizemoney kept increasing as listeners tried and failed to secure the winnings. However, eventually one ZM listener got lucky.

Jayne, 35, who lives in haupō in Waikato and works in the transport industry, hit the jackpot last week.

She’d tried ringing a couple of times over the past few weeks, and last Monday morning — while baking muffins — she looked at the time and thought she should try again. “They answered,” she said.

“I thought I was just one of the back-up callers.”

Playing was pretty simple, she said. Jayne hit the 5.00s mark dead on, to the delight of hosts Fletcher, Smith and Sproull and producer Jared Pickstock. They crew was intrigued by her strategy, with Jayne deploying one curious (and effective) trick to mark time.

“My partner and I joked that if you got through, you wouldn’t be able to count properly because of the slight delay,” Jayne told the NZ Herald.

“I figured when you’re on the phone to them you’d be feeling under pressure and go way too fast, so I thought what else could I use?”

She didn’t use a stopwatch or numerical counting. “I thought, the kids’ names would work.”

Whether this sweet strategy gave her some added luck, we’ll never know. But regardless, it worked, and she’s taking home $50,000.

How did her two kids, 6 and 9, feel about the win?

“My youngest one didn’t believe me, she just turned around and had her breakfast.”

Asked if her older child was angling for anything from the winnings, Jayne suggested a boat to go fishing.

It’s “absolutely” a life-changing amount of money, she said, and had come at a good time.

Jayne said they’re thinking about putting some of the windfall towards a wedding. She and her partner have been together 18 years and “probably should get married”.

“I reckon we’d elope.” Winning a prize like that live on air meant it was hard to keep the news under the radar. And haupō is “such a small town” she said it’s not really possible.

“I think the kids would have gone to school and told everyone anyway.”