A Christchurch man is thanking his lucky stars that the city’s crime rates are amongst the lowest in New Zealand this week after he left a £1.8 million winning lottery ticket in his car overnight.

The Lotto winner decided to stop at his local shop and purchase a line on the Lotto as a one off. He wrote the numbers on a piece of paper but left the Lotto ticket in his car! The man, who wants to remain anonymous, then checked his numbers only to see that he had actually hit the NZ$4.7 jackpot, but where was the ticket?

The winner said he bought a ticket on the spur of the moment from Cashmere Super Dairy, and wrote down the winning numbers on Thursday morning.

"I then realised my ticket was in the car, so went out to check it. When I realised I had a line that matched, I could not believe it. I rushed inside and grabbed my wife and we both were shaking with excitement. I can't believe we left more than $4m sitting in the car overnight."

After much searching the winner managed to locate his ticket and recently banked his prize which included NZ$2.5 million in cash, an Aston Martin, an Audi Q7, an apartment and a holiday home to name but a few. This win has literally changed this man, and his family’s, lives over night and they now have substantial funds in the bank, a new home, cars and a holiday home!

Earlier this year Camelot who run the British national lottery said that a staggering £2 million in winnings go unclaimed each year.

In just one week last year £2,411,524 in lottery winnings were given away to good causes because the winners did not come forward in time to claim their prizes.

This could be because they forgot to check their lotto ticket, or worse still they know they had won, but they had lost is, and so could not claim, that life changing lottery winning jackpot prize.

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