An Auckland man, who had no idea he’d won Lotto, had the winning ticket in his work bag for more than two and a half weeks. <\/p>\n
Powerball was struck on Wednesday, February 18’s draw, with the winning ticket bought from a dairy in Glen Innis. <\/p>\n
The winner, who was unaware he’d become a millionaire, said he had no clue the prize had been won and was still unclaimed. <\/p>\n
It wasn’t until he stopped by the dairy that he bought the ticket two-and-a-half weeks later that he finally checked. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know anyone from Auckland had won \u2013 never mind that it hadn\u2019t been claimed. It was in my bag the whole time, coming with me to and from work and wherever else I\u2019ve been,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The man said he only bought a ticket occasionally, and usually checked them when he went to the shops, which explained the long wait. <\/p>\n
He said he didn’t know what to think about discovering he’d won. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lotto operator said, \u2018Ahh, we\u2019ve been waiting for you \u2013 come with me\u2019, and took me out the back. That\u2019s where they told me I\u2019d won $4.5 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I was in shock \u2013 I just couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When his family got home later that evening, he got them together to share the news. <\/p>\n
One of his family members initially thought it was a ruse. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Hey, can you come here? I\u2019ve got something I need to tell you’,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he told us, I just waited\u2026 expecting him to turn around laughing and say \u2018jokes!\u2019 but he didn\u2019t \u2013 he was very serious!\u201d<\/p>\n
The man said he was enjoying the freedom that the money provided, and was planning to “take things slow”. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be a lot of decisions to make, so I know I need to take time to really think things through.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main thing I want to do is buy a home for my family \u2013 that\u2019s always been a dream of mine \u2013 and later we\u2019d love to go on a big family trip together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prize was made up of $4 million from Powerball and $500,000 from Lotto First Division. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Auckland man, who had no idea he’d won Lotto, had the winning ticket in his work bag…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,138,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-326889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326889","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=326889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}