New Zealand man trashes $22.5 million lottery ticket

It was not until the following day, when he heard the lucrative prize had not been claimed, that he searched for the ticket and found he had won.

The man, in his 20s, who did not wish to be identified, had bought the ticket on a whim, spending money he had set aside for a haircut after he went to his hairdresser and found the shop closed.

"I originally checked the results on my phone, but I must have got the wrong draw so I thought my ticket was a loser. I chucked it aside and thought 'that was that' and went to work," he told Fairfax News on Friday.

"It was only when there was so much talk in the town about the unclaimed prize that I thought it might pay to recheck the ticket."

The NZ$27 million prize consists of NZ$25,592,110 in cash, a Lamborghini Gallardo, an Audi Q7, a speedboat, a credit card topped up to NZ$50,000, as well as NZ$50,000 worth of travel and NZ$675,000 cash towards a holiday home.