What are your chances of actually winning the big one? Video / NZ Herald
As the Lotto Powerball jackpot hits $28 million tonight, we catch up with one of the game's biggest winners - and discover there's been personal heartache.
He's the former supermarket worker who won $26 million, fell in love and held a lavish wedding at the Karaka mansion he paid for with his winnings.
Te Kauwhata supermarket check-out operator Trevor, with his parents Kevin and Shirley, and his winning $26,000,000 Lotto Powerball ticket at the NZ Lotteries Commission in Wellington. Photo / File
But the whirlwind romance was over within three years.
The Herald on Sunday can reveal Lotto winner Trevor Cooper and Sharie Marshall are divorced. Cooper has found love again with accountant Arlene Frost and Marshall has re-married and had her third child. Her new husband is Michael Capper, to whom she was engaged before her relationship with Cooper.
Cooper went from working as a training manager at Countdown in Huntly - ironically about to learn the ropes on the Lotto checkout counter - to driving expensive off-road race cars at prestigious American events after his win in March, 2012.
It's almost as much as tonight's jackpot of $25m after Powerball wasn't struck midweek and is among New Zealand's biggest wins.
The biggest win in the country's history was $44m by an Auckland couple who had been struggling to get on the property ladder, in 2016.
Cooper's mother, Shirley, told the Herald on Sunday there was no prenuptial agreement between her son and Marshall, despite his Lotto win months before their wedding.
"I told both my children, especially Trevor, you don't need a prenup if you love them and they love you — it's trust and understanding. I never advised him to get one, it was his choice."
She said she wasn't shocked to hear her son's marriage was over.
Trevor Cooper and Sharie Marshall on their wedding day. Photo / Supplied
"There are no children to Trevor thankfully, but I knew the marriage wouldn't last. But I told both my children who they marry is their choice and I will back them all the way — that's what you have to do as a parent, unfortunately."
The couple married on February 15, 2013, on the lawn of Cooper's sprawling $2m mansion in South Auckland in front of celebrant and comedian Ewen Gilmour and 100 family and friends.
Trevor Cooper has found love again with accountant Arlene Frost. Photo / Supplied
Car-mad Cooper chose a new Harley-Davidson to lead the convoy of cars to meet his bride. No expense was spared on security. The event was guarded heavily by men in black.
Marshall's two sons were in the wedding party.
Public records show that between 2013 and 2015, Marshall and Cooper owned 12 properties between them, but records reveal Marshall was no longer a shareholder or director from September last year. Marshall didn't want to comment and Cooper didn't return calls.
Cooper invested in million-dollar properties and bought houses for his parents Kevin and Shirley and his sister Sharon.
Trevor Cooper at the Western Springs speedway. He was able to indulge his need for speed after his win. Photo / Getty Images
"Winning all that money, your life changes," Shirley said.
"It's not all roses. He was very generous not only with family but charities. When he splurged out I'd say, 'stop spending'. There has to be a good reason - but he has a big heart."
She said her son had been lonely before his win. He never had a "string of girlfriends" and she was genuinely pleased he and Marshall got together.
The extravagant wedding between Trevor Cooper and Sharie Marshall at his Karaka home in 2013. Photo / Michael Craig
"I was happy he had someone. He said to me, 'You have dad, Sharon has got a partner, I have no one'."
But the relationship had been strained between Shirley and her son after he married Marshall.
"That's when things started going wrong. He has to earn my trust back. I hurt very easily ... It's up to him if he wants to talk about what happened but I won't push it, I'd rather have my son back - but it's up to him to come to me, that's all I have to say."
Trevor Cooper, left, arriving with a groomsman to his wedding. Photo / Doug Sherring
There are no wedding bells anytime soon for Cooper and Arlene Frost, but Shirley is fond of her son's new partner.
"She's a lovely lady and we get on well. My feeling is he will be a lot more cautious. They are living together. She needed somewhere to live, he offered her a bedroom and it's grown from there."
