The store’s owner-operator, Kim Woods, told 1News that she and her staff were “pretty excited” that the winner was a local. <\/p>\n
“I think it’s quite massive for the community,” she said. <\/p>\n
The store is locally owned and has a staff of 18, all of whom are employed from within the community. <\/p>\n
“It’s a good feeling because we’re a small store and you generally know the people coming through the door and by name. <\/p>\n
“They almost become like your friends because, you know, if they go missing or don’t come in, you wonder where they are.” <\/p>\n
Woods said it was the first time the store had sold a winning ticket worth over $1 million. <\/p>\n
“Definitely the biggest one I’ve sold in my six years.”<\/p>\n
![\"Lotto](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/lotto-illustration-2KKLSKTZTJHGNJQ7GW5TYXWPBI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Lotto (illustration). (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
With three winning tickets being sold at the store, Woods said: “We must have had a pretty good winning streak.” <\/p>\n
She said the winner was yet to come foward, but did not expect them to. <\/p>\n
“If they do, great, that’d be fantastic, but I feel like they might probably go to Lotto directly. <\/p>\n
“So, you know, we may or may not find out who that lucky winner is.” <\/p>\n
A total of five players won $200,000 in Lotto first division in last night’s draw, while a Strike player from Timaru also took home $200,000 with Strike four.<\/p>\n
The other tickets were sold at New World Browns Bay in Auckland Glen Innes Dairy and Lotto Outlet in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 21 players won $17,369 with Lotto second division.<\/p>\n
One of those players, from Invercargill, also won Powerball second division, taking their haul to $43,448.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Trump’s heated call with Netanyahu and New Zealand’s luckiest lotto player this year. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of an Ashburton Four Square is thrilled for the community after a winning $28.2 million Lotto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[138,158,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-460140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-business","tag-christchurch-canterbury","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\/460140","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=460140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}