'I couldn’t believe it': Woman wins first ever $1m Instant Kiwi prize online

Author: Herald Reporters,
Publish Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2026, 3:11pm

A Tasman woman has become the first-ever person to win a whopping $1 million on an Instant Kiwi online game.

A Lotto spokesperson said the exciting win came after the woman made the spontaneous decision to play.

“I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t know how to react, whether I should laugh, cry or scream,” the woman said.

Before last week’s win, the largest prize won on Instant Kiwi online was $200,000.

‘I’m a millionaire now’

The winner said she logged into the MyLotto app last Thursday morning to buy a ticket for Saturday’s $40 million Powerball draw, and had a bit of money spare in her online account.

She decided to try the $15 Millionaire Money Match game and moments later, she was staring at a message which said she’d won the eye-watering sum.

“I don’t usually play the online Instant Kiwi games, and I actually only saw it because I bought a ticket for Powerball because the jackpot was so big.

“I saw the game and thought I’d give it a go, never expecting to win this much. When it said I had won $1 million, I thought, ‘No ... this can’t be right’,” the woman said.

She immediately called Lotto NZ to check that the life-changing win was true.

The rest of her day was then spent trying to come to terms with the win and convincing her family she wasn’t joking.

“I was walking around my house in a daze just thinking, ‘How did that even happen? I’m a millionaire now’,” she said.

The woman said her family had thought she was playing a prank.

While the winner was still deciding what to do with her windfall, she said one thing on her wish list was a brand new “dream car”.

Lotto NZ head of corporate communications Will Hine said the win was a significant milestone.

“While $1 million prizes have previously been won in-store on our Instant Kiwi scratchies, this is the first time we’ve had an online winner claim a prize that big,” Hine said.

The spokesperson said Millionaire Money Match was launched last month and is the first Instant Kiwi online game to offer a $1m prize since the games were introduced to MyLotto in 2017.