The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, only plays occasionally and said a friend had mentioned buying a ticket and thought "why not buy one myself?".
The winner checked the ticket on the night of the draw on the MyLotto app and watched all the numbers starting to line up.
"When it said a major winner, I thought maybe it was $10,000."
Later that night, the winner read in the news that a Queenstown player had scooped up the $1 million.
"That’s when I thought, that might actually be me.
"I started to wonder how many zeros are in a million and had to count them a few times, just to be sure," the winner joked.
The winner said it took a few takes of watching the numbers line up to really come to terms with it.
The winner’s first thought was, "I can pay off my student loan!"
After a happy but sleepless night, the winner said they went on the MyLotto app one last time the next morning to make sure it was real.
"A win like this doesn’t come by often, I will take some time to think it through and get financial advice on how to make the most of it."
