A technician in his 50s drove around with a winning lotto ticket for R20-million in his car for five months before he took the trouble to check the numbers.

“Tucked into a pocket in the driver door panel for the past five months was a R20 million Lotto jackpot ticket with the six correct numbers for the draw that took place on 28 March 2009,” said Thembi Tulwana, spokeswoman for the lottery operator Gidani.

“Now the man, who is in his 50s and who has chosen to remain anonymous, has come forward to claim the R20-million lotto jackpot prize,” she said on Tuesday.

And if he was not early to pick up his children from school one day, he probably would still have been in the dark.

“I went to pick up my children from school and I happened to be early. That’s when I decided to check my tickets that were in my car’s door panel,” the winner told Tulwana.

“The retailer checked more than 50 of my tickets and I was winning between R30 and R100 in small prizes until the last ticket read ‘not authorised to pay’.

“I decided to take this ticket to Gidani’s offices in Midrand and when I got there I was told that I was R20-million richer.”

The man, who spent R40 on his winning ticket and chose the numbers randomly, kept the news to himself for a while.

“When I got the message from the retailer that read ‘not authorised to pay’ I asked for a print-out of the numbers and went to sit in my car to check my numbers.

“I went through them about 10 times and was almost late in picking up my children.

“I decided not to tell anybody including my family because I wanted to make sure first by getting confirmation from Gidani,” said the winner.

His children will be top of mind when he starts spending his earnings.

“The first thing that I’m going to do is to settle all my debts after which I’ll be renovating our house and start planning towards my children’s future,” he said.