Lotto mistake leaves King Country woman over $1 million richer

A woman from King Country is still trying to get her head around how she accidentally won $1,095,742.

Prior to the lockdown, the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, played a regular Lotto Combo 8 ticket in-store. With stores closed during the lockdown, she used Lotto NZ's manual Combo 8 generator to work out the 28 combinations she would need to continue playing her numbers on MyLotto.

"I've won a few smaller prizes with these numbers so I'm just glad I was still able to play them while the shops were closed," said the woman.

But what the woman didn't realise was that she had accidentally doubled up on one line of her ticket while working out the combinations of her eight numbers – a mistake that landed her an extra $500,000.

"I usually watch the draw and check my numbers the same night, but I missed it that night and forgot all about the tickets."

"It wasn't until Tuesday when I was checking my emails that I saw one from MyLotto Customer Support and that prompted me to check them," said the woman.

The woman logged in and her first ticket popped up. She watched as the animated draw played and the numbers circled on her ticket one by one. The winning tune played, and she knew she had won but couldn't see how much.

"That ticket had a few winning lines, so I was scrolling down the ticket trying to find the amount – then I saw it at the top – $579,481. I couldn't believe it – I wasn't sure I was reading it right but there were lots of numbers and commas!"

"Then the second ticket came up and I saw I had won again – it was amazing!"

The woman checked the results page and saw there were two MyLotto First Division winners for the draw and laughed to herself – "both of those winners are me!"

As well as two First Division wins, the woman also scored herself six Second Division wins and a few smaller wins too – taking her total prize win to $1,095,742.

The woman called her children to share the good news – and to double-check that she wasn't seeing things.

"I told them I thought I had won twice – they didn't quite believe me until I showed them the tickets," she laughed.

The woman is still coming to terms with her win and hasn't celebrated or made any solid plans yet.

"I'm still digesting it and getting my head around it all – I still can't really believe it happened. First things first – I'd like to pay off my mortgage," she said.

"I'd also like to book a holiday when we can and I might even update my car, but I'm not 100 per cent sure yet."

The winning tickets were sold on MyLotto for the draw on Saturday, July 4.