A woman from the Bay of Plenty is “really happy” after winning $500,000 in Strike for the Must Be Won draw.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a regular player who bought a Strike ticket after work last Wednesday after seeing that it was a Strike Must Be Won draw that evening.

“I found out I’d won later that night when I checked the results on my MyLotto App. I started circling the numbers on my ticket against the Strike numbers and saw there were one, two, three, four – at this point, I called out to my husband and said, ‘We haven’t won $37 million, but look at this!’”

“He couldn’t figure out what it meant so we rang our daughters to confirm – and they were more excited than we were!” the woman says.

However, it took a bit of convincing, according to the winner. “They thought we were pulling their leg, so we had to send them a photo of our ticket!”

The woman claimed her prize the following day.

“We’ve got a lot going on, so we were going to leave it until next week, but we were a bit nervous about leaving it at home – you never know what can happen!”

After claiming her prize, the woman treated her family to an “awesome lunch” in town.

“We’re going to keep working but it’s great to know our future is taken care of now,” the woman said. “We plan to support the whānau and put most of the money away for retirement.”

The winning Strike ticket was sold at Matata Superfoods in Whakatāne for the draw on Wednesday 16 August. One other winning $500,000 Strike ticket was sold on MyLotto to a player from Dunedin for the same draw.