The owner of Dairy Flat Food Mart and Liquor, where a record $44 million Lotto Powerball jackpot was sold, says the winning ticket holder has claimed the prize at another of his stores.
The winner took the ticket into another store of Nishchal Pandya's, in the north Auckland suburb of Manly. He thinks the person may have known that he owned both shops, as they are about a 20-minute drive from one another.
The win eclipses the previous biggest Lotto prize given to a single winner - the $36 million won by a Masterton family in June 2009 - and Mr Pandya says he was over the moon his store had created history.
Mr Pandya said he was winding down after work when he was told, and couldn't believe it.
"We close at 7pm, and after the draw I was at home having dinner and I got a call saying, 'Congratulations on selling the biggest ever Lotto in New Zealand history.'
"At first I didn't have anything to say, but then I was so, so happy. My kids were jumping [after hearing] that Dad's shop had sold the biggest-ever ticket."
Mr Pandya says he has been running the shop in Dairy Flat for 11 years. The biggest winner he's sold before was $280,000 for a Bullseye first division victory - 157 times smaller than the $44 million won on Wednesday night.
He said his store had as many customers turning up on Wednesday than it would in an entire week, so great was the buzz around the bumper Powerball jackpot.
Mr Pandya says Thursday morning was no different, as people came in to check whether the ticket they bought there was the lucky one.
"Normally we open at 8am, but today we opened at 7:30am because we knew that people would come in and check their tickets. They're congratulating us - even though they haven't won anything, they're still happy for us.
"Just in the morning, I had a customer who was shaking before he checked his ticket at the terminal. He didn't win, but he was still happy that someone from Dairy Flat had."
Mr Pandya has his "fingers crossed" the big win means more people will come to his Dairy Flat store to get their tickets checked in the future.
Lotto won't confirm whether the winning ticket has been claimed.
Newshub.
