Mall haircut leads to $9.3m Lotto win for Hamilton man

Tuesday, 5 June 2018

Thanks to a quick hairdressing trip to a mall hairdresser, a Hamilton man and his kids are planning on how to spend $9.3 million. 

He won the Lotto Powerball win on Saturday night. 

After taking his kids for a haircut, the winner - a man who wants to remain anonymous - ducked into Chartwell Lotto for a ticket before heading back to the car at Charwell shopping centre. 

It was on a whim, he said. 

'I just put the ticket in my wallet and got on with our day,' he said in a written statement issued by Lotto. 

On Sunday evening the dad checked his ticket. 

'Then I saw Powerball had been won too – but I had no idea I'd bought a ticket from the winning store, let alone that the winning ticket was sitting right next to me.' 

Then he saw 'Major Prize Winner' show up on his Lotto app. 

'The kids weren't too sure what was going on, so I took a depth breath to collect myself. Then I turned to them and said 'What would you do if we won Lotto?''

A puppy, holiday and new house were all on the shopping list. 

He checked the numbers again before telling his kids. 

'I really couldn't believe it. I felt like I was in a dream! My youngest son started jumping and shouting.' 

The man - still trembling with the shock - called his friends, who rushed over thinking something was wrong.

The winner collected his prize at the Lotto NZ Auckland Head Office on Tuesday morning. 

'I still can't believe that I'll be able to tick off some of the things my kids and I chatted about on Sunday night.'