A small Taranaki town is buzzing after the shocking discovery that four of seven winning Lotto tickets were sold at the local Four Square.
Each first division ticket is worth a cool $142,857, but more than half the $1 million total is going to someone - or less likely, several people - in Patea.
Taj Singh - who manages the local Four Square - says the bizarre outcome is the talk of the town. He was informed by the Lotto regional manager on Saturday night after the draw, and couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"It was hard to sleep last night. First thing, when we came in this morning, everyone is just asking, 'Who is that? Who is that?' We don't know yet."
The chance of any single line of a Lotto ticket having the six numbers needed to win first division is one in 3,838,380.
Singh isn't sure yet whether the four winning lines were sold to a single player or several.
"Could be the same person who bought four lines of Lotto, or the possibility of four different winners," he told Newshub.
"The chances of four different tickets is rare - there is more chance [it's] the same customer... We don't know yet because no one has claimed the ticket yet. We don't know."
He hopes the jackpot went to a local - of which there are only about 1000.
"Patea is just a small town, a small community. We had a previous first division ticket sold in 2016 as well... Definitely makes a difference in Lotto sales."
Foot traffic to his store is up on the usual Sunday morning.
"Just going crazy," he said.
The winning numbers were 2, 8, 17, 18, 27 and 29. The Bonus ball was 15, the Powerball 3. Strike was 18, 8, 17 and 2. The other three winning tickets were sold in Porirua and Auckland.
