With Labour Day long weekend, the winner may have gone on holiday and forgotten about their ticket.
If winners haven’t claimed their prize after a couple of weeks, Lotto NZ will start taking steps to find them.
“We really want our winner to find out themselves and have that winning moment – that’s all part of the dream isn’t it?” said Hine.
“While winners do have 12 months to claim their prize, we want them to have it as soon as possible so they can start making their plans for the future and of course, not miss out on any interest they could be earning.”
There are many reasons Powerball winners don’t claim their prize straight away. Some people need time to let the news sink in before claiming.
It’s not the first time winners have delayed collecting big prizes.
In June’s $50m Must Be Won draw, one of the seven winners didn’t check their ticket for more than two weeks.
The couple didn’t know their local store had sold one of the winning $7.18m tickets and weren’t in a rush to check.
In 2023, a Christchurch couple took more than a week to claim their $33.5m Powerball prize.
“They knew their ticket was a winner and hid it in a sock drawer while they processed the magnitude of their win before claiming their millions,” said Hine.
In 2020, a $5.5m Powerball prize went unclaimed for almost a month before Lotto NZ found the Morrinsville winner. He’d left it in his car glove box, only for Lotto staff to inform him.
