$500,000 greetings card a hard gift to top

An Auckland boy's carefully drawn card held a huge bonus for his father. Photo / Paul Estcourt

As is traditional, Auckland man James received a handmade Christmas card from his 13-year-old son. But this time the card contained more than a child's love and best wishes.

There was also a Lotto ticket worth half a million dollars - one of the top prizes in the Holiday 200 Triple Dip promotion.

"My son asks me every year, 'What can I get you, Dad?' And I always say, 'Look, don't worry about it. Just make me a card'," the 50-year-old father told the Weekend Herald.

"So he makes me a card. It takes him several days to draw it all and put it all together and things like that. This year ... he asked my partner, who works in the city, if he could get a Triple Dip. So she bought the Triple Dip, and he put it in, and here we all are now."

His son's artwork was now worth $500,000, James said.

"It was priceless before, and it's even more priceless now. I don't know what he's going to put in his card for next year now. It's a very hard one to top."

On Monday, James - who spoke on condition that his identity was not revealed - got the ticket checked at the Sylvia Park shopping mall in Mt Wellington and the computer came up with the winning message.

"I thought, 'Oh, this might be big.' Then I went up to the counter to get them to check it on their machine, and it shut their whole machine down. I didn't realise it did that.

"The lady held [the prize figure] up, and I didn't have my glasses with me, and I thought it was $50,000. I said, 'How much?' And she mouthed to me, '$500,000.' And I went, 'Oh.' I started sweating actually."

Once they got home, he and his partner couldn't stop giggling.

"We didn't sleep that night. I probably had the worst night's sleep I've had for bloody ages. You can't settle - just trying to get your mind around the whole thing. It's just absolutely mind-boggling."

James, who describes himself as an average fulltime working Kiwi trying to struggle through the tough economic times, said the money could not have come at a better time.

"We've got a mortgage to service and bits and pieces like that. It will take a little bit of the pressure off in that respect. We'll holiday somewhere and invest the rest in something sensible, until we can really comprehend [the prize].

"We don't plan on buying silly cars or boats or anything like that. We are just ordinary people.

"When you work a normal 40- hour week ... it's hard to comprehend suddenly coming across a vast sum of money just like that.

"I feel like one of those people you read about who struggles along through life, and then something good happens."