Hokitika family claim $6.5m Lotto prize

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A Hokitika family has come forward to claim the $6.5 million Lotto win, which has been the talk of the town since the lucky draw on Saturday night.

Lotto New Zealand said the winners were a local family syndicate who wished to remain anonymous.

"They are thrilled to have scooped the top prize and are still having trouble believing it's real," Lotto said, in a statement.

The winners said they had heard on the news that someone in Hokitika had won: "So we pulled out our ticket and checked the numbers. Even though it looked like we had them all, we didn't get excited there and then. We wanted to check it with Lotto first."

Although the ticket was sold by Hokitika New World, they presented it to the Fitzherbert Street Four Square Lotto desk, where it was confirmed the family syndicate ticket had scooped the Lotto Powerball prize totalling $6.5m.

"It's quite a bit of money -- so this will help everyone set themselves up. It's a really good feeling to be able to help family," the winner said.

Fitzherbert Street Four Square co-owner Shirley Grant was at the store when the winner took the ticket in.

"She was so calm. You would never have known they'd just won $6.5m," Mrs Grant said. "It was really exciting. I am just rapt for Hokitika, that we've sold another winner, and that it was someone local who won."

Last year, it was Fitzherbert Street Four Square's turn to make another local millionaire, selling a $2m ticket.

Lotto New Zealand said Hokitika continued as a "town of good fortune".

"Hokitika was founded on goldmining and it appears there's still a lot of gold to be found there. This is the third time in Powerball's history that the jackpot has been struck by a ticket bought in Hokitika. In 2002, a ticket bought from Hokitika New World won $11m and in 2013, a ticket bought through My Lotto scooped the players $15m. That's a lot of luck for a town of less than [4000] residents."

Hokitika New World has now sold two Powerball winning tickets and four Lotto first division winning tickets. The Powerball jackpot was struck three times and the Big Wednesday jackpot was struck once in January this year, making January 2015 one of Lotto NZ's best months for winnings. Four major jackpots struck in a single month has only happened once before in Lotto NZ's history, in February 2010.