"We've never sold a winning Powerball up until this year and now we've had two."
Sitting in her Pyes Pa home with a huge grin on her face, Ms Sands was buzzing from the news.
"It's what makes the job, especially to have a run like this with two Powerballs."
Because the shop is closed on a Sunday to give her a day off, Ms Sands often missed the moment the customer would go in to claim their winnings.
But hopefully not this time, she said, hoping to share in the excitement.
"I can be discreet ... But I usually cry to be honest," she laughed.
"If you win $1 million you can make your life comfortable - $5 million you can do whatever you want. It's enough to stop work if you're clever with it.
"It's a dream and you hear the stories of the ordinary people and it's just changing their life forever."
She always hoped the winners would be one of her regular customers.
"I'd say we've got a thousand regular customers that come in every week," she said.
"We have a really loyal customer base, it's amazing. Our customers are friends because I've been there so long and my partner is from Greerton originally."
Ms Sands had dreamed many times about how she would spend the money.
"I'm supposed to be old and sensible but I still get excited about what you could do.
"I would probably buy myself the dream lifestyle block and I'd go to visit my grandchildren every six months in Australia."
A Lotto NZ spokeswoman told the Bay of Plenty Times last night that the winner was yet to claim the prize.
"If they're a regular, often they wait until their shop opens on a Monday," she said.
"Every win is different ... They may not even know."
The weekend's draw was the 10th top Powerball win this year - two of them sold at Greerton Lotto.
In February, a Greerton couple who were regular customers won $4.5 million. Ms Sands said the couple lived a very similar life and still bought a ticket every week.
"Imagine if it was them again," she laughed. "That would be a story!"
Lotto lowdown
• The first Lotto tickets went on sale in New Zealand in July 1987. When the first division prize was drawn on August 1, $359,808 was won. The numbers were 4, 8, 16, 29, 32 and 40. The bonus ball was 30.
• In September 2012, a Tauranga 27-year-old won $27m - the biggest Lotto win for the region.
• This followed a $13.3m win from Bureta Superette in 2008 and an $8.6m win from Tauranga City Lotto in 2007.
• In 2010, New Zealand's biggest-ever lottery winner died. Masterton woman Margaret Heaney won $36.9m in a Big Wednesday jackpot.
