Good things do happen to good people.
A New Zealand man that won NZ$1 million in a lotto draw on Wednesday of last week says he has ‘good karma’ to thank for his life-changing windfall after picking up the jackpot.
According to the New Zealand Herald, the man, who wishes to remain anonymous, was queuing to purchase his ticket at the lotto shop in Pak N Save in Papamoa on his way home from work when a fellow customer rudely skipped in front of him without asking.
Polite to a fault, he let the incident pass without saying anything and, though it’s impossible to predict the random nature of lotto draws, feels that it might have contributed to him winning the jackpot.
“I was waiting in line at the Lotto shop and another customer nipped in front of me,” the winner said in a written statement from Lotto New Zealand.
“I wasn’t in any hurry, so I just let them go ahead and didn’t say anything. I guess good karma pays off – if that hadn’t happened, they might have had the winning ticket not me.”
The winner didn’t even check the winning numbers until a few days after the draw and when he did realise he had won, he decided to keep it from his wife for a few hours before he ‘casually dropped it into the conversation’.
Although the couple haven’t decided exactly what they’ll do with their winnings yet, a significant amount of it will be used to buy a new house.
“The win has made it possible for us to buy a home of our own – we’re so excited!” the winner said.
“We’re not too sure what else we’ll do just yet. But whatever we end up deciding, we know the win will make a massive difference to our family – we’re just absolutely thrilled.”
A New Zealand Lotto spokesperson did say that the ticket sales and lotto draw were undertaken on a random basis and that the winner’s place in the queue may not have made a difference, but karma works in mysterious ways sometimes, right?
See? Nice guys don’t always finish last.
