Family Wins Plenty
Last Updated: Friday 16th January 2015, 09:41
A New Zealand family is celebrating after winning a $13.3 million Lotto Powerball prize on Saturday 5 January. The family have opted for anonymity, but we do know that the winners just happen to live in the Bay of Plenty which is situated on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
The Lotto game in New Zealand requires players to pick 6 from 40 numbers to win the jackpot, and the Powerball option allows them to pick an extra number from 1 to 10. Any player who wins a Lotto prize and also has the winning Powerball on the same line and has also played a Powerball wins both prize funds.
The Bay of Plenty family don’t usually exercise the option to pick a Powerball, but when they saw how large the jackpot was for the draw on Saturday, they couldn’t resist. The family then waited to watch the game unfold live on television.
“My husband gasped, I think I’ve got four numbers, then he realised we had six!” a family member said. “We waited patiently for the Powerball number and I said ‘I bet it’s going to be a number three’. Then out pops the number three!
“I normally check our Lotto tickets but this time my husband took our ticket off me and checked it himself. It must have been his good luck,” the wife said.
The family won $409,197 from the Lotto First Division and a massive $12,921,763 from the Powerball First Division, giving them a total lottery fortune of $13,330,960.
“It’s so much money, you have no idea how amazing this is for us,” the winners said afterwards. “ Just knowing we are going to be set up for the rest of our lives is the best feeling.”
Todd McLeay, who is Chief Executive of New Zealand Lotteries, said: “The total amount of $13,330,960 makes the Powerball winner fourth on our top ten all time Powerball winners list.”