A lucky Palmerston North Lotto player who woke up this morning $500,000 richer  is yet to claim their prize.

The ticket, one of two to split the first division prize on Saturday, was sold at Melody’s New World. The supermarket also sold one of the ten second division winning tickets worth $27,915.

It was the store’s 17th first division winning ticket.

Store manager Kelly Melody said it had handed out almost $25 million in winning Lotto tickets in the 25 years it has been opened.

‘‘It’s always pretty exciting for us too, to see who comes in and has won,’’ she said.

‘‘We’re the luckiest in Palmerston North because we’ve been here forever... and we’ve got a lot of loyal customers because of it and most of them buy their tickets when they’re getting their groceries.’’

She said many of the winning ticket owners will come in early on a Monday when they realise they have won a big prize to make sure there won’t be too many people around.

But so far no one had claimed the lucky ticket.

The other first division ticket was sold at Mobil Mt Albert in Auckland.

- © Fairfax NZ News