"I checked my Lotto numbers [Saturday] night about 9pm and it came up just saying 'not a winning ticket, better luck next time' so I thought okay.
"Then I thought I'd go through it and saw that there were three drawn numbers and a bonus number. I thought 'oh, there must be a prize for that surely'."
Robert said he wasn't a prolific user of Lotto so wasn't sure of what was needed to win in all of the divisions.
He called Lotto customer service on Saturday night without luck, before getting a reply on Sunday and told that the money was in his account.
But his focus was now around what happened and why and if anyone else had been affected.
"If I hadn't bothered checking, I wonder what the outcome would have been? It couldn't possibly just apply to me.
"They haven't explained it and just said that the money is there. At the same time they haven't really given any explanation.
"They're expecting customers just to accept that it's not a winning ticket when it is and that's the first time I've ever checked it afterwards and I gather many people would not even bother, so there's no way of knowing if it's a common occurrence or a one-off."
He had only begun buying tickets online the past few weeks.
"I have a friend that we usually share Lotto. I saw that you could do it online so thought I'd try it the last few weeks, but how are you to know if you are getting misinformation about the results?
"People should know that they are advised to check.
"Did it affect one person or everyone who had that set of numbers? Who knows?"
When contacted, a Lotto spokeswoman couldn't answer any questions about whether there was a glitch or how widespread it was.
"We're currently looking into this and will be back in touch with [Robert] once we know more. This may take a couple of days, and we sincerely apologise to [Robert] for any inconvenience."
However, Consumer NZ's Jessica Wilson said they were yet to receive any complaints about the issue yet but if there was a problem, Lotto should be front-footing it.
"If they are aware that there is a potential problem they need to be looking into it and they need to be contacting any customers who have used the website who may be affected.
"And if they can't pinpoint those users they need to be going out wider to Lotto customers and alerting people to the issue.
"If they find that there is a problem with their website and it hasn't been showing correct information they have an obligation to fix that and make sure they do their utmost to contact those affected by it ... you're going to be pretty miffed if you've missed out on potential winnings."
