{"id":185569,"date":"2025-12-15T23:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185569\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T23:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T23:36:07","slug":"lotto-player-wins-16-million-with-surprise-ticket-check-at-nelson-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/185569\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotto player wins $16 million with surprise ticket check at Nelson supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSometimes I\u2019ve won like $25 or $35, but I never thought one day I\u2019d win the jackpot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA Nelson man won $16 million last week. <\/p>\n

For years, he bought one $12 ticket every Saturday and one on Wednesdays when the jackpot got high.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOn a Saturday, because I\u2019ve got more time, I let my fingers follow the numbers and select the ones they land on. On Wednesdays, I just buy a random ticket and let the machine pick the numbers. I never spend more than $12.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast Wednesday, I saw the Lotto jackpot<\/a> was $16 million and I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to have a shot at this, and bingo!\u201d<\/p>\n

He was \u201clost for words\u201d trying to describe how the life-changing win<\/a> made him feel. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing feeling because I never thought I\u2019d win this sort of money. I\u2019m so happy. I can\u2019t believe it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The winner said he was going to keep his victory<\/a> a secret but share the earnings with his family. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve only told them [family], nobody else\u201d. <\/p>\n

The enormity of the win is still sinking in, but the winner already has some ideas about what he will do with his windfall. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy dream is the dream of everybody, to buy your own house and pay it off, along with a new car. After that, I\u2019ll probably buy a boat because I love fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can buy anything I want now. It\u2019s like a dream after 25 years of hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, though, the winner is planning to take some financial advice and catch up with his family. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is life-changing. I\u2019ll remember the 10th of December 2025 for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSometimes I\u2019ve won like $25 or $35, but I never thought one day I\u2019d win the jackpot,\u201d he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41813,1975,3390,8908,33017,40671,424,4960,440,9851,10506,1132,91,13631,111,43,139,69,9617,2735,97,88,417,10507,3604,1316,6202,102],"class_list":["post-185569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-41813","tag-at","tag-best","tag-check","tag-checked","tag-draw","tag-life","tag-live","tag-local","tag-longtime","tag-lotto","tag-million","tag-nelson","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-player","tag-store","tag-supermarket","tag-surprise","tag-television","tag-ticket","tag-watches","tag-when","tag-wins","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}