An Auckland mother and daughter have stepped forward to claim their $6.3 million prize from Saturday night's Lotto Powerball draw.
The winners, who wished to remain anonymous, said after hearing Powerball had been struck and the winning ticket was purchased in their area, they "didn't really think anything of it".
"It wasn't until late on Sunday night that I thought I'd check our ticket," the daughter said.
As she was checking the numbers, it wasn't until she got to a line at the bottom of the ticket when she started to get excited.
"I checked it line by line and none were winners. But when I got to a line towards the bottom of our ticket, I saw we had a couple of numbers in a row - and immediately started giggling."
She said she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Then I saw we had all six winning numbers and I got chills all through my body - I couldn't believe what was happening. Then I saw we had the winning Powerball number as well."
The news prompted her to immediately call her mum, with whom she's taken turns to buy Lotto tickets for years.
"Just knowing that we'd split any prizes we were lucky enough to win was special for us," she said.
"Even though it was late I jumped straight on the phone and called mum. When she answered I blurted out, 'We did it!'
"She had no idea what was going on, so asked, 'Did what?' That's when I told her, 'We're the winners - we've won Powerball!'
"It was a really emotional moment for both of us."
After a sleepless night due to excitement, the pair have since claimed their prize - and plan to put it towards their family and the wider community.
"This prize is going to make an enormous difference - it will be truly life-changing for many people. We feel incredibly blessed."
The odds of winning Powerball are 1 in 38 million for a single line.
