Auckland family claims final ticket in Lotto Powerball $50 million prize

In today’s headlines with Chereè Kinnear, New Zealand tourist tragically killed in a California robbery, the Government’s plans for the housing market and voting to open in the UK.

An Auckland family is the final winner to claim their $7.2 million prize as part of last month’s Lotto’s Powerball $50 million prize.

The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, said they had a family meeting to share the happy news.

“It’s all for them – everything has been. It means so much to know that my family will be looked after.”

“They’ve slowly been doing bits on the house, and now they can afford to finish the renovations,” said one of the children.

“We really want them to do something for themselves though. They’ve been talking about a special overseas trip for a long time and now they can do that, it will be amazing for them,” said another.

The family became multi-millionaires after the June 8 draw but didn’t find out they had won the top prize for another two weeks.

“Because we don’t buy tickets all the time, we usually only check our tickets when we remember to – we weren’t in a rush,” said the man.

A couple of weeks passed, and the man remembered the ticket, which was in his wife’s handbag for safekeeping. He dug it out and scanned it using the MyLotto App.

“The app told me I’d won a major prize and to take the ticket to a Lotto store. I wasn’t sure how much I’d won… but I had a feeling that it was a big amount.”

Two Auckland family have dedicated their $7.2 million Lotto Powerball win to their children. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

The man stashed their ticket back in his wife’s handbag so they could check it when they went grocery shopping the next day. Before doing the shopping, they took their winning ticket to the Lotto counter.

“They told us we had won $7 million – we were so excited!,” he said.

The winner said the victory was for their children.

The first two winners claimed their prizes the day after the mega jackpot was drawn.

The first winner from Hamilton bought their ticket at Shop Rite Dairy in Maeroa while the second bought their ticket at New World Hastings.

The fourth winner, from Auckland, bought their ticket on MyLotto.

A Hawke’s Bay couple who won $7.18 million returned to the store from where they bought the ticket to claim their prize.

The pair said they were “stunned mullets” when they found out.

“We’ve often spoken about what we would do if we won Powerball – and here we were doing that for real!” the woman said.

“This win is going to be life-changing for us. It means we can retire sooner than we thought, and best of all, it means Nanna and Poppa can spend lots more time with the grandkids.”