A Taupō couple have described winning the “Mack Daddy” of prizes after checking a bonus ticket and discovering they were $1 million richer at the weekend.

The pair, who wished to remain anonymous, are regular players who have been playing their own numbers for more than 20 years, Lotto New Zealand said in a release today.

The couple won bonus lines in last Wednesday’s draw and while watching Saturday night’s draw, the man quickly realised the winning numbers weren’t the ones they usually played.

“We knew they weren’t our numbers, so we didn’t really think much more about it,” he said.

It wasn’t until later that they remembered they also had some bonus lines to check.

“We scanned the ticket on the MyLotto app and it came up saying we’d won a major prize.”

Curious to find out exactly what they’d won, the couple began checking the numbers one by one.

“My wife read them out and I checked them off. Then we checked it again. And again. I reckon we checked it about 10 times, because we just couldn’t believe it.”

When it finally sank in that their bonus ticket had scored them a First Division prize of $1m, the couple were stunned.

“We had to have a little sit-down,” the man said.

“It was very, very exciting.”

The couple said the prize would make a huge difference to their lives and future plans.

“This is so much money to us.

“We need to have a good long think about how to manage it.”

While they’re planning to get some good financial advice before making any major decisions, they already had a few ideas about how they’d like to use the money.

“We’ll pay off the mortgage and I’d also like to trade in the old ute and get one with cup holders.

“This really is the Mack Daddy of prizes to us. We’ll be able to look after our future very comfortably with it.”