A spur of the moment purchase turned out to be the decision of a lifetime for an Invercargill man who has become Instant Kiwi’s newest millionaire.
The lucky Southland winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, picked up his winning $15 Cash Spectacular Instant Kiwi on a whim when buying his regular Lotto ticket on Friday.
"I’ve bought the Cash Spectacular scratchie a few times before and have had a bit of luck with them - $50 and $40 wins here and there. So when I saw them at the Lotto counter I thought I might as well pick up a couple for my wife and I," said the man.
Unaware of just how lucky one of his tickets was, the man left them on a kitchen shelf for a couple of days before he got around to scratching them.
"I forgot about them, actually! My wife and I were out for a drive at the weekend when we started talking about what we’d do if we ever won the big one – after much discussion, we’d settled on buying a lifestyle block," laughed the man.
Upon arriving home, the man decided it was as good a time as any to scratch the Instant Kiwi tickets he had left sitting in his kitchen.
"I picked up the two tickets and put them behind my back, then told my wife to pick one," said the winner.
"When I scratched the ticket and saw $1,000,000 staring back at me, I couldn’t believe it. I stared at the ticket for ages, then finally turned to my wife and said, ‘Have a look at this one – and put your glasses on because I’m not sure of what I’m seeing'."
After re-checking the ticket the couple jumped in their car to confirm the win at the local Lotto shop.
"It’s not a long drive, but I was jumping out of my skin the whole way to the Lotto shop. I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous," said the man.
"When the lady at the Lotto shop scanned the ticket and said, ‘Oh wow, look at that’ – that’s when I knew I really had scratched something very, very lucky."
The winning ticket was sold at Ascot Four Square in Invercargill.
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