Now here's Close Up. Tonight on Close Up ` can you have too much of a good thing? Vote in our poll on how big Lotto jackpots should be. And it's Autism Awareness Day. What's our attitude to the condition that affects 1 in 100 NZers? Due to the live nature of Close Up, captions for some items may be incomplete. ONE News captions by Faith Hamblyn and Chris Leggett. Close Up captions by Desney Thorogood and Kelsey Taylor. For a Countdown operator called Trevor his life has changed forever. The Te Kauwhata resident has won more than $26m in the big Lotto jackpot. We are going to hear from Trevor very shortly. But is that prize simply too big? Is it crazy to offer such huge jackpots? Why not cap the main prize and create even more winners still for a few million each? That's up for discussion tonight, as it's been around our office all day, and we want your views. Our Close Up poll tonight ` should Lotto jackpot to $30m or be divided into smaller prizes? Text A to 8875 if you're keen on big jackpot wins, or text B to 8875 if you would prefer smaller draws and more ticket buyers picking up cash. We've all thought about it. Come on, what would you do if you won the $26m? Even just daydreaming. Well, for Trevor ` yes, he just wants to be known as Trevor; I suggest he won't keep the surname secret for long ` but for Trevor (34) from Te Kauwhata, it's not an idle fantasy. He does have to work out what to do with it. He talked to Matty McLean this afternoon. So, Trevor, you have just become probably the most eleigble bachelor in NZ. How does it feel? It's surreal at the moment, eh. It's just` I just can't comprehend it in words, how I'm feeling. Um, woke up this morning and it's finally started to settle in that the bank balance is bigger than my phone number. Yeah. What do you say? Crazy day. Yeah, very crazy. Talk us through last week. When did you buy your ticket? I bought it on Wednesday from the Four Square, like normal. Sunday morning, my flatmate woke me up. She's a very good friend of mine. She wakes me up. "Did you buy a Lotto ticket?' Sort of half asleep. 'No, no.' The I clicked. 'Oh yeah. I did buy one on Wednesday.' And she said I should check it. 'Powerball was won here', and I was, like, 'You're joking', so I got up, had a coffee, had a cigarette, turned the laptop on and brought up the lotto.co.NZ. And, heck, started screaming a little bit, called her in to check my ticket, and we checked it again, and the legs went to jelly, my knees gave way, and I sorta hit the floor. She kept checking the ticket over and over. 'I've just won it. It's all mine.' Is that kind of amount hard to comprehend? $2.6m is hard to comprehend. $26.5m ` that's insane money. Yeah. You just can't comprehend what to do with it. Um, gonna step back from it a little bit and just, 'Hey, we've won, but take a breather.' You've obviously though about it. What are you going to do with the money? My brother and myself, my father, we're going racing. Butother than that, I don't know where to start. Brand new car. I'd love to have a brand new car. Maybe own my own house. Hey, that's now possible. So what do you do at the moment? I'm a checkout operator at one of the Countdown stores in the greater Waikato region. Uh, I just finished a 26-week manager's training programme with them, which is awesome. Um, just stepping my way up through the job, and I'll be there at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning. It's gonna be neat to be able to go back to work tomorrow morning and work because I enjoy the job, not work because I need the money. The cardinal rule that they tell you here at the Lottery Commission is not to tell anyone for six months. Why did you decide to go so public so quickly? It's a big deal to keep a secret. Whether I went and bought a new car tomorrow, it's gonna give it away pulling into the driveway tomorrow night. So it's made it easier bringing it out public. It stops any speculation, any rumours. Here I am. I won it. I'm no different tow hat I was yesterday. And you think you'll be able to maintain that normal lifestyle? I'm planning on it. There's a lot of people that are gonna kick me in the pants if I don't, so... (CHUCKLES) Are you afraid of harassment ` you know, people coming to you and asking for money? It's one of those things. We take the chance of buying a Lotto ticket like everyone else. This time it was me that it paid off for, gratefully. Um... Charity starts at home with your family and friends. You can't help everyone, and unfortunately that's the way it's gotta be. You do seem pretty chilled out about this whole thing. You are now a multi-millionaire. Are you just a chilled-out guy? Could you say that last phrase again ` the multi-millionaire part? That's still great to hear that part, eh. Yeah, I'm just an easy-going guy, love my job and where I live, my family, my niece and my nephew. I couldn't ask for any more, you know? Just, yeah, everything will go on the way it is, just a lot easier,... a real lot easier. (CHUCKLES) Now that you're a multi-millionaire. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, a multi-millionaire. That's two very big words. I guess if you were Trev, the idea of a big humdinger jackpot feels pretty good right now. But are we leading people into grief? Would we be better offering more, but smaller, jackpots? Mark Crysell talks to some winners who all struck it lucky. What happened afterwards, though, wasn't quite as consistent. Most Lotto winners tend to keep it to themselves, but last year a number outted themselves for the TVNZ series What Would You Do? With winning all that money comes an awful lot of responsibility. Large chunks of the $18m Helen Henderson won goes to charity and helping people out. Because I don't drive, I got the bus into town. Walked into Starship, found the Starship Foundation, knocked on the door and said, 'Here I am.' Farmers Eileen and John Transom won $72,000 in 1987 ` the first year of Lotto and quite a bit of money back then. MAN: Bank manager was so pleased to see us. When the cheque arrived in the mail, I took that into the ANZ, and he was waiting there with a cup of tea. Of course he was happy ` they wanted to pay off debt. We bought a Commodore ` a second-hand Commodore. $15,000, that cost. We got rid of some of the mortgage, which I think, from memory, was about 25 thou'. We got rid of that. 20 years later, Maurice Timu also spent some of his $5.4m on cars ` new ones. I've bought a number of vehicles ` Holden vehicles ` for myself and my three children. I've actually bought them a vehicle each. I've bought my lifestyle block here in Waipa. I've bought myself a ride-on lawnmower for that strip. # Get your motor running. Head out on the highway... # But it's not all happy endings. The million dollars Roy Jordan won has now gone on bad real-estate deals. And his wife's left too. We did have a financial issue, and it blew up in both of our faces, and she's gone, but there were other issues as well. I can't change it, can I? Next time I would consult my accountant and my bank manager. The $1.4m Travis Hunwick won led to huge rifts with his family, especially his father. The money hadn't even been processed into my account yet, you know, and he comes around all agro, like, you know, 'Where's my money? When am I getting it? How much?' and then pretty much tried to come around and tried to extort 100 grand out of me the next bloody night. And this may surprise you, but if Travis had his time over again, he would rather have not won Lotto. I mean, it gives you houses, it gives you cars, it gives you money, but, you know, if it's going to put strain on relationships and friendships and other things, it's not worth it. At the moment Lotto jackpots are capped at 30 million. Why have a cap at all if you want to go that way? Karen Jones from the Lotteries Commission is in our Auckland studio, and with his view on whether money can buy you happiness, psychologist Nigel Latta. why is there a cap? there always has been. It's set at a point that is aspirational for people without being too far out of reach. if you accept that there is a limit, why not have survived five five million-dollar prizes? Trevor would not be very happy. That's how most of our customers feel. People say that's what a lottery is. They want big prizes. 1 million is good but they want the chance to go for those really big prizes And every now and then someone once one. Are we just greedy? the modern world tells us that to be happy to be a millionaire or a movie star. But how do the rest of us cope with the despair when we do not win? It's not quite true. There is an amount of money you need to lift the everyday burdens off you, But after you get above that it's not like the more money you have, the happier you will be. It seems to be that unhappy before money and unhappy after money. will 25 million present more problems they 1 million? in terms of what the research says? It depends on who you are as a person. If you are happy before, you will be sensible and look for ways to spend that money not just on things on experiences in people. it's about those sort of people having a happy outcome. If you have a lot of dysfunction going into it, then the money will just give you ways to compound it. It's much nicer being unhappy and a really flash hotel! but we saw Trevor come out publicly. How many do that? 16% to come public. They tend to win the lower prices. anything over half $1 million, people want their privacy. I can see why Trevor came out. He lives in a small town and did not want to live a lie. We supported going public. I was surprised, but it does make complete sense. He doesn't seem the kind of guy that wants to creep around town. People would either think he was up to no good or he had one more so. It's better to be out there. I was watching the politically incorrect guide to grown-ups. How much of a difference does it make how rich they are? do you like me for me would you like me for the car and all the other stuff? That's the stuff he has to get its head around. How does the weed out the hangers on? you don't offer advice directly to the winners, do you? Does anyone just go crazy and spend it? most people buy lotto ticket when they think money would be handy? People are usually used to managing money. We recommend people to shop around for services. we're going to come back to you later on. We have our poll Should Lotto jackpot to its $30m limit or be divided into smaller prizes? Text A to 8875 if you're keen on big jackpot wins or text B to 8875 if you would prefer smaller draws and more ticket buyers picking up cash. Coming up ` how a little understanding can go a long way to make life easier for the autistic and their families. They have goals and dreams like the rest of us. Sometimes we don't always know what they are. (LAUGHS) But if you do, you really need to celebrate that. We had intended tonight to have an interview with Michelle Boag. In fact, Michelle Boag insisted on coming on after our story last Thursday. This was about the letter from Sovereign Insurance to Miss Boag which drew the prime minister into whole ACC-Bronwyn Pullar affair. Michelle boag told me afterwards that our programme had defamed her and she would come on tonight to put her position. Well, she now feels it's no longer appropriate to extend the discussion. I'm sure that will come as a great relief to the PM as well. Its hard to define an adult with autism. Some barely speak. Others talk incessantly. Some are incredibly gifted. Others? No real skills at all. What they all share, though, is difficulty being accepted because they're 'different'. Even for a very high-functioning autistic person like Sam Muir-James, day-to-day life isn't easy. So, as it's Autism Awareness Day, Gill Higgins spent some time with Sam to better understand the challenges he faces. Sam's been working with me since you were about 17, Sam? We do shows all round the Auckland area. He taught himself when he was 10, being a visual learner Its no secret Sam has autism, but sometimes it's hard to tell. After all, he's a talented clown... and an impressive swimmer. < Ready? Go. Fantastic. Up at 5 in the morning to clock up... ...100 lengths of the 50m pool every session, so he's doing very well. He's hot on the court, too. He's our star player on our team. Yeah, he does all the work pretty much. But his apparent ease can be part of the problem. When he's out in the community and people see Sam as he is, and, you know, they don't realise there is a condition there until he speaks. What do you find hard? T... Talk. Frustra... Frustrating? > Yes. Sam, like a lot of other people with autism, need time to process. Go on the top. So you have to wait for the clock to goes all the way up to the 60. Definitely is harder for him learning the drills and learning the procedure, but once it clicks, yes! Kicking! Just kicking. What are the particular challenges with Sam? I have to teach why we're doing the drill, and I have to repeat it more. That was better, Sam. That was better. It's rare for autistic people to do mainstream sport; even rarer when it involves team work. What was hard about playing basketball with other players? Trying to pass, three point, look where the players are. When he first started playing, it was all about him. There weren't four other people in the team. Some things you have to keep reminding him, but` Like, cos he'll try to shoot it from halfway and stuff like that, but every now and then he gets it in, so that's all right. Sam's done kayaking, too ` good enough for the NZ junior champs. They have to carry their boat and then get back in the water, but Sam went the wrong way, didn't you? And so, he was doing very very well, his dad said. So once back in water and going in the right direction, he came third. I thought that was a real achievement. Life has, not surprisingly, been challenging for Jayne too. She had not just one, but two, autistic sons. People don't know. A lot of the time, they think it's bad mothering, they're having a meltdown in the community, and we had a few of those as the boys were growing up. Now they are grown up. What are the challenges that you face? Sam likes to party, but he's still quite alone at a party, and I can't always be there with the boys, or the young men now. She's been able to give Sam some work though; so's Dad in a timber products factory. But going out to the mainstream workforce? Yeah. I could see how frustrating it could be for an employer to understand how they think differently. What could people do that would help you? Learn to communi...cate. < Just kicking! His swim coach does it well. < Yep, go. She's enabled him to do his first ocean swim. They have goals and dreams like the rest of us. Sometimes we don't always know what they are, but if you do, you really need to celebrate that. He knows what he's aiming for next. Swimming the Cook Strait. Do you think you can do that? Train hard. I'm sure he can do it. I'm sure Sam was put on this earth for a reason, and that's to teach others empathy and tolerance and, most of all, patience. OK, that was fast. Well done. Coming up ` our poll results. It's not too late to have your say. The results of our poll now. More than 13,000 of you texted in, and there's a clear-cut preference. Only 13% of you are keen on big jackpots, while 87% of you would rather see smaller prizes spread across more winners. And for a final word on the results, Karen Jones, communications for the Lotteries Commission, and psychologist Nigel Latta. You're surprised? if anyone thought about this statistics, they would not buy a lottery ticket. these big prizes are a conspiracy aren't they? you won't be changing your strategy? be more than doubled our sales, so no. I don't buy lottery tickets. That is not my plan. Get a better plan. thank you so much for joining us. And that's NZ Close Up.