Instant Kiwi instant success

Press, 15 September 1989, Page 1

Instant Kiwi instant success

By

KATE FEARN

and NZPA

Three out of the top seven prizes from the first day of the Instant Kiwi lottery have gone to Christchurch ticket-holders. The lucky tickets, worth $lO,OOO each, were bought from the New Brighton Lotto Shop, the Selwyn Village Lotto Shop and Cooks Auto Services. The Lotteries Commission’s marketing manager, Mr Phil Prosser, said more than 2 million tickets were sold, far exceeding his estimations. “I have never seen queues so big. It’s like the return of the days when massive queues lined up for the Golden Kiwi,” he said. “I didn’t go to one shop that didn’t have 15 or more people in and around the store." He believed the Instant Kiwi was a product of the 19905, and although future sales would not be as big as the first day he believed they would remain at a “healthy rate.” “We sold more tickets today (Thursday) in Instant Kiwi than in the last four months of Golden Kiwi,” he said. But Instant Kiwi was an instant disaster for an Ashburton man yesterday morning when his $lOOO prize went up in smoke. The man, who preferred to remain anonymous, bought a few tickets and went home to scratch, and hopefully win. He scratched and scratched but found he could not come up with the right combination to put him in line for even a $2 prize. Undaunted by his lack of success, he returned to his Instant Kiwi outlet for more tickets.

While taking his second punt for the day, the man mentioned to the shop manager that it was a difficult task to win a prize when you had to have three identical amounts on each row. Three out of three was pretty tough odds, he said.

“Three on one line?” the shop manager, queried. “No, you must have three the same out of the two lines.”

Three out of six was what he had had, the man said, and the three identical amounts were $lOOO.

The delighted shop manager was ready to pay out Ashburton’s first big win of the day. But no — the punter had miscalculated and thrown his winning ticket in the fire.