"I was walking past the Lotto counter when I saw a poster with a picture of a Golden Kiwi ticket on it. When I saw the ticket, I was immediately reminded of a lady I used to know who'd won $200,000 on one of the original Golden Kiwi tickets back in the day — so I thought I would try my luck and give it ago," the woman said.
Buying a Golden Kiwi ticket for herself and her husband, the woman went home and popped her ticket in her diary to scratch later.
However, it wasn't until a week later when her husband asked her to claim his $8 prize from another ticket she remembered she hadn't actually scratched her ticket yet.
"I grabbed the ticket out of my diary and sat down at the kitchen table to scratch it. I figured if I needed to pop to the store and claim his prize, I should probably check mine too — just in case,'' she said.
"When I saw I had three silver ferns on one line I was pretty happy – then I saw the prize was $50,000 and all I could think was that I had made some kind of mistake, so I called over my husband immediately."
After checking the rules on the back of the ticket, her husband confirmed that she had in fact just won $50,000 and the couple headed straight to their local Lotto shop to claim the winnings.
"We were both in so much shock, I kept saying 'are you sure we've won?' When the store finally told us it was true, it was such a relief, we finally felt like we could get excited," she said.
Wanting to let their kids in on the win, they decided to surprise them by taking a photo of the Prize Claim Form and send it in their group chat.
"We had all the kids trying to call us at once," laughed the woman. "They were super, super stoked for us!"
With the couple currently looking to build a new house, the win has come at the perfect time.
"We're going to build our own home, so this win really couldn't have come at a better time. Now we will really be able to make this house our dream home – we feel very lucky."
Shrushti and Nirav Patel sold a $5.5 million Lotto ticket at the Taipa Foodmarket in May, the largest winning ticket sold in the region this year - so far.
The largest win in Northland so far this year was the $5.5million Lotto and Powerball ticket sold at Taipa Foodmarket for the May 1 draw. That huge prize was won by a local from the area.
The largest ever Lotto prize won in Northland was an$18m Lotto Powerball winner sold at Kaeo Four Square in May 2006.
At that time it was the largest Lotto prize won in the country and was won by Auckland man Geoffrey Henderson - who bought his ticket while visiting his elderly mum in Kaeo.
First Division wins in Northland in 2019
Date - Store - Game - Amount:
January 12 - Countdown Dargaville - Instant Kiwi - $40,000
January 30 - Kamo Lotto - Bullseye - $240,000
February 26 - Countdown Dargaville - Instant Kiwi - $50,000
March 8 - Countdown Dargaville - Instant Kiwi - $100,000
