For the second week in a row, a winning Lotto ticket worth more than $5 million has been sold in the Dunedin area.
Saturday night's winning Lotto Powerball ticket, worth $5.3 million, was sold at Windsor On the Spot Express, in Port Chalmers.
The community dairy manager, who declined to be named, believed it was "very unusual" for such big winning tickets to be sold in the same city, a week apart.
He was delighted his store had sold the winning ticket, which was made up of $5 million from Powerball, and the rest from Lotto First Division.
"It’s pretty good."
He hoped it had been won by a Port Chalmers local who really needed the money, rather than a cruise ship passenger.
He said the store had only sold one Lotto First Division-winning ticket in the past, and was not sure if the latest success would earn his shop the reputation of being a "lucky Lotto outlet".
"The reputation might bring more Lotto players in, but then again, it might not because they might think the lucky ticket’s already gone.
"It’s a random thing."
A mother with her baby who was walking past the store yesterday had no intention of going in until she heard it had sold a $5.3 million winning ticket.
"That’s awesome for down here, because the majority of winners are in the North Island — Auckland.
"Now that you’ve told us, I think we might need to go in and see how lucky we get."
Last week, a Lotto ticket that won $5.5 million was sold at Gardens New World supermarket.
A Lotto spokeswoman said the prize had now been claimed, but details of who had won had not been released.
Anyone who bought their ticket from Windsor On the Spot Express, in Port Chalmers, is urged to check their numbers in store, on MyLotto, or through the MyLotto App.
While the odds of such an occurrence may seem very long, an Auckland statistician disagrees.
In 2020, the Patea Four Square, in South Taranaki, sold four out of the seven winning First Division Lotto tickets in one draw, leading many to believe the store had beaten all the odds and the game was "rigged".
But AUT University statistics senior lecturer Dr Robin Hankin said this was "very, very unlikely", and it was far more believable that one person bought all four, perhaps using their usual combination of numbers.
He calculated the chances of four different people buying a first division-winning ticket in the same store in New Zealand in one week at about five in 100,000.
The Lotto spokeswoman said in general, the odds for winning Lotto family games were one in 38million for Powerball, one in 3.8million in Lotto, and one in 2.1 million in Strike.
