Whangarei man wins $5.5m in Lotto

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A Whangarei man was speechless after finding out he'd won $5.5 million in Lotto last week.

The winner, who wants to remain anonymous, had no idea a big prize had been won in the area so was in no hurry to check his lucky ticket.

"I didn't think anything of it until I got home from work. I had a few minutes to myself, so figured I might as well see what the winning numbers were," he said.

"I pulled up the winning numbers on the computer and ran my eyes over the ticket. It didn't take long to see that I had all the winning numbers - they just popped out at me.

"I shouted, 'I've got the lot!' and then ran to get my wife to make sure I hadn't stuffed something up. When she saw the ticket she was as stunned as I was - not a lot was said to be honest."

After finding out just how much their little yellow piece of paper was worth, the winner and his wife headed straight to their local Lotto shop to claim their First Division Powerball prize.

"We popped the ticket under the ticket checker first, just to make sure we hadn't got something wrong. When that flashed up 'Major Prize Winner', I went over to the Lotto counter and quietly said 'come over here' to the store owner.

"He looked at the ticket, then back at me and shook my hand - I think he was as shocked as I was."

With the prize claimed, the winner and his wife went home and celebrated their big win in a relatively laid back fashion.

"We just sat down with a beer and a glass of wine, trying to make sense of what had just happened. We didn't really know what to do - we couldn't believe our luck."

With the prize safely in the winner's bank account, the lucky couple are now looking forward to deciding how to spend their winnings.

"We don't want to rush into anything, so we're planning on investing most of it for a year or so. But we do want to pay off the mortgage and help the kids out - we might even splash out on a holiday next year.

"And I'll be retiring early now, that's for sure."

The winning ticket was sold at Sunnyside Foodmarket in Whangarei for the draw on Wednesday 16 November.

The Whangarei resident is the 10th player to win big with Powerball so far this year. This win came just one week after a player from Dairy Flat, north of Auckland, won $44 million in the largest-ever Powerball prize draw.