Third Lotto winner nearly gave away $13.3 million ticket

A man who won a share of the country's biggest Lotto prize in history on Saturday nearly gave away his ticket to a friend.

The Te Awamutu local, who bought his ticket at the nearby Oparau Roadhouse in Kawhia, won $13.3m - a third of $40m.

"I actually bought two tickets for the draw on the weekend, and I gave one to a friend for her birthday" he said.

"I called her up after I found out I'd won and said to her 'you must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand. Everyone else had 1 in 3.8 million odds of winning, but your odds were 50/50'. Luckily she sees the funny side and is really happy for me."

The man who wishes to remain anonymous went to his local supermarket for some shopping and decided to check his ticket at the same time.

"I had no idea that anyone in the area had won, so I certainly wasn't expecting anything," he said.

"The ticket went through the machine and then the woman behind the counter asked me to come into the back office, and I thought 'what's going on here? When she told me that I'd won and then how much... I can't tell you the first words out of my mouth, but let's just say there was quite a bit of swearing."

The winner said he is still deciding what to do with his winnings but is looking forward to being able to help out friends and family.

In the meantime, he is enjoying splashing out on himself.

The other two winning tickets were bought from Pak N Save Dunedin by locals and on MyLotto by a Hamilton family.