A Southland woman was woken up with some big news last week and since then she could barely sleep.
She and her husband won $6.3 million with Powerball first division in last Wednesday’s Lotto draw.
"It doesn’t feel real. We’ve been on such a high," the husband said.
The Southland couple treated themselves to a Christmas promotion Triple Dip ticket early in the week, but on the night of the draw they were in no hurry to check their ticket.
The man was watching cricket when he heard the winning ticket and just after that he went to check his ticket.
"When all my numbers lined up, I stared at the screen for about 15 minutes and walked around in a daze for another 45."
Finally, the man stumbled to his room to share the news with his wife.
"She was sleeping, and I just held my phone up to her face and said, ‘You need to look at this.’ She was like, ‘Are you serious?’
"We haven’t had much sleep since," the man said.
The experience had been "surreal".
"My mother cried when I told her, and my boss was great about it. He told me to enjoy the experience and joked that he probably wouldn’t see me next year," he said.
So far, the celebrations had been "a couple of celebratory beers".
"It’s great that money isn’t an issue now and we can just enjoy things. But mainly, we want to take care of our family and make sure our children and future generations have a comfortable life."
