A Masterton man says he ran through the house screaming in his underwear after winning a $5.08 million Lotto prize.<\/p>\n
Three people split the $15 million jackpot on Saturday night, and one of them, a West Coast winner, is yet to claim their prize.<\/p>\n
Lotto NZ head of corporate communications Will Hine urged West Coast players to check their tickets, for Saturday\u2019s prize and a separate $500,000 Lotto First Division prize from November which was still unclaimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone could be walking around completely unaware they\u2019re now a multi-millionaire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Masterton winner, who bought his ticket online, logged in to check it about 6.30am on Sunday while still in bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext thing I know, I\u2019m running through the house in my underwear yelling, \u2018Oh my god, Dad! Dad!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
His father was startled awake, initially fearing something was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was asleep and wondered what on earth was going on,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I woke him up screaming, he understandably thought something terrible had happened until I turned my phone around and showed him the screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what to do. Honestly I think I\u2019m still in shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so unexpected \u2026 things like this don\u2019t happen to people like me. It\u2019s life-changing money and I want to make sure I make the most of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The other winner, from Wellington, bought his ticket as part of a regular weekend ritual on the K\u0101piti Coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to be by the sea, so I grab a coffee and have a stroll on the beach, and before I go home I buy my tickets for the week ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw that it was split between three people I thought that was wonderful too \u2013 it\u2019s a great amount of money for three families to share in.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had not yet told his family about the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll wait until it\u2019s in my bank account first and let myself process the news a bit more before I tell anyone, but I am looking forward to telling my children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis win means I can help them, and my grandchildren \u2013 it feels great to know I can give them a bit of a boost as they start their lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
-Allied Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Masterton man says he ran through the house screaming in his underwear after winning a $5.08 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-292135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292135","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=292135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}