A hankering for a pie led to the purchase of the winning Lotto Powerball ticket. Photo / supplied.
A hankering for a pie has led to a $3.8 million Powerball win.
A West Auckland mother, who has asked to remain anonymous, stopped off at the shops to buy her son a pie for lunch over the weekend.
While there she picked up a Powerball ticket, asking for "the luckiest ticket you have, please".
The winner didn't find out how lucky she was until later that night.
"I was getting ready to go bed when I saw online that a winning ticket was sold at Avondale Foodmarket," she said.
"I couldn't remember the name of the shop I bought my ticket at so I decided to just go to bed.
"But something must have clicked because I couldn't rest.
"So I hopped up and grabbed my ticket to give it a quick check, just in case."
With no pen handy, she simply ran her eyes over the ticket.
"That's when I saw the numbers lining up on the second-to-bottom line of my ticket.
"I kept muttering 'nah, nah' as I saw each number, then I saw I had the right Powerball number and then I knew I was in trouble," the winner said with a laugh.
She raced out of her bedroom and grabbed her son for a second opinion.
"Mum handed me her phone with the winning numbers and asked me to check her ticket," the winner's son said.
"I checked it a few times, but couldn't believe what I was seeing.
"In the end we woke up my girlfriend and asked her to check it for us, too."
Wide awake, the trio spent the rest of the night sitting in the lounge staring at the winning ticket.
As soon as it was Sunday morning, the family raced to the local Lotto shop to confirm they had truly become overnight millionaires.
The winner is now looking forward to paying off her mortgage, and finally buying herself a new fridge.
Saturday's $7 million Powerball jackpot was shared by two Lotto winners from Auckland and Christchurch, who each took home $3.8 million.
The other winning ticket was sold at Wainoni Pak'n Save in Christchurch.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.