The quadrillions and trillions behind Huntly store’s four big lotto wins

Friday, 3 July 2026

Jalpa, left and Vaibhav Chokshi, right, are ecstatic after their store Bookshop and Lotto had four First Division winners from one draw.

The chances of winning were in the trillions… or maybe quadrillions? But certainly up there with being struck twice by lightning, say the boffins.

But whether it was a single lucky punter $1 million richer or four different people who struck Lotto first division from a Huntly store, both experts and the ticket sellers are unanimous - luck is on their side.

All four Wednesday tickets were bought from The Bookshop and Lotto and have collected a cool $250,000 each.

University of Waikato senior lecturer Han Gan said if 1000 lines were sold and the winning tickets were bought by four separate people, 'then the odds of four winners is 1 in 5.24 quadrillion'.

“If it happened to be the same person with the same lines 4 times, the odds shorten to around 1 in 4000.”

Massey University associate professor Jonathan Marshall said the odds were one in a trillion if all the numbers were chosen at random.

“It would be like getting struck by lightning twice in a year.”

But it’s the sort of pleasant bolt from the blue punters should expect from the store, say ecstatic owners Jalpa and Vaibhav Chokshi.

“My customers are happy, but we are also happy because my store is lucky,” Jalpa Chokshi said.

Vaibhau and Jalpa Chokshi did not get much sleep after Wednesday’s first division results.

The Bookshop has been operating for a number of years, but the couple have owned it for the past two years.

Vaibhav said they have customers from Huntly and north Waikato with customers coming as far as Auckland for a ticket.

He said they’ve been “buying tickets from the store for years” because it’s “some lucky store”.

During that time, the store has had “4 or 5 winners”, but Vaibhav said they are yet to sell a Powerball-winning ticket. Wednesday night’s winner/s didn’t get one, meaning the Saturday draw is up to $20 million.

Jess Derecourt also had a win on Lotto, winning $23 and bought a scratchie ticket.

Customer Jess Derecourt stopped by to check her Lotto ticket and confessed she wasn’t among the lucky four but had won $23 and was reinvesting in a scratchie ticket.

Vaibhav also dabbled in playing Lotto and won $31 on Wednesday, while Jalpa is less keen than her husband.

Lotto NZ head of communications Will Hine said the most likely scenario is that it was one player with one ticket 'with the same four lines of Lotto and different Powerball numbers on each line'.

The Bookshop’s previous winning trophies. The owners hope to add a Powerball jackpot to the collection.

However, he said it would not be possible to know for sure until the winner, or winners, claimed their prize.

It’s not the first time this scenario has happened.

Hine pointed to an Ashburton resident who won $28.6 million last month after playing the same numbers on three lines, winning three shares of first division, with one line also matching the Powerball number.

In 2024, an Auckland couple won $44.67m after 'playing a ticket with 10 lines of the same Lotto numbers, with 1-10 Powerball'.