A couple from Taupo unwrapped a very generous present this Christmas when a Lotto ticket they received as a gift won them $1 million with Lotto First Division.
The winners had three tickets for Saturday's Lotto draw - two they had purchased themselves and one sent to them for Christmas by a relative in Tauranga.
"I'd been having a pretty bad day, so decided to sit down on Sunday evening and check our tickets in the hopes that might make the day a little brighter," one of the winners said.
"I checked the two we'd bought first - no luck. Then I checked the ticket a relative sent us for Christmas. When I realised we had all the numbers I gasped and checked the line again... and again, and again. Then ran outside to find my husband.
"Neither of us could believe it - a million dollars! We were a bag of nerves for the rest of the evening.