Sanjay Patel, the owner of lucky store Copper Kettle Dairy and Lotto on Queen St. PHOTO/FILE
MARY ARGUE
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A performance Tesla, a house deposit in Wellington, or a luxury superyacht for a week are only a handful of ideas for Masterton’s lucky winner of Saturday’s Strike Four draw.
The $100,000 prize may not be Wairarapa’s biggest windfall, but “it’s not bad,” according to Sanjay Patel, owner of Masterton’s Copper Kettle Dairy and Lotto store that sold the winning ticket.
Patel said the Queen St store had sold at least two winning Lotto First Division tickets, but it was the first time they had sold a winning Strike.
He said it was a pleasant surprise reading the results Sunday morning. However, although the store had many regular Lotto customers, the winner was yet to come forward.
“Normally, people check their tickets somewhere else, but if they are a regular, they’ll be in.
“Sometimes they don’t want to be known.”
Patel said it was always memorable telling someone they were in for a windfall.
“I remember I told one man he had won half a million, and he said ‘what?’ and banged his head on the counter.
“I never saw him again.”
Patel said lucky stores tended to see a spike in sales after a win, and he expected his Lotto sales to increase over the next week.
In Saturday’s Lotto draw, a second $100,000 Strike Four ticket was sold in Porirua, and a Four Square in Hamilton made someone a multimillionaire, selling the $9 million Powerball First Division ticket.
Wairarapa boasted a fair share of Lotto wins, with Martinborough’s Pain and Kershaw selling a $1m winning ticket in November last year.
Masterton’s lucky Kuripuni Lotto and Post Shop made headlines in 2009 after it sold a ticket that won a family an eyewatering $36.8m, and again in 2018 after a week-long hunt for the couple that bought a winning $12.5m ticket.
