A Northland man has one million reasons to celebrate after discovering that the little yellow ticket he had been carrying around with him for a week was worth $1 million.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, had no idea that a winning First Division ticket had been sold in the Whangārei store he had bought his ticket from.

“I grab a Lotto ticket every now and again and bought my ticket a day before the Wednesday night draw last week. I stashed it away in my wallet, and completely forgot about it,” he said.

“A week later, I remembered that I had a ticket to check, so popped instore to use the Lotto self-check machine. When the machine played the winning music and said, ‘congrats, major prize’ I was a bit surprised!”

“Not knowing how much I had won, I decided to play it cool and keep a low profile, so I went up to the counter, purchased a Lotto ticket for the next draw, and went straight home.”

When he arrived home, the man told his wife what had happened. They pulled up the draw results on MyLotto and began checking the ticket against the winning numbers onscreen.

“Sure enough, I had all the numbers on one row of my ticket. My wife kept saying, ‘you’re kidding!’ – we were both in complete disbelief that we were holding a winning Lotto ticket.”

Early the next day after a restless nights’ sleep, the man stashed his ticket back in his wallet and the couple headed south to claim his prize at Lotto’s Head office in Auckland.

“I definitely made sure my wallet was safely in my pocket the whole way!” laughed the man.

After claiming his prize, the man said the good news is only just beginning to sink in.

“My wife and I are so happy, and we’re excited to be able to set ourselves up for the future. We are also looking forward to being able to support some organisations that are close to our hearts,” said the man.

The winning Lotto First Division ticket was sold at Meadow Park in Tikipunga in Whangārei for the draw on Wednesday 29 June.

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