$50 Million New Zealand Powerball Jackpot Must Be Won On Saturday
A $50 million First Division prize is guaranteed to be given away on Saturday 15th August after the top New Zealand Powerball prize rolled over to its cap, triggering a Must Be Won draw. If it’s won by a single ticket holder it will be the biggest ever jackpot in New Zealand lottery history.
$43 Million Powerball Jackpot Not Won
The enormous jackpot has come about after 16 rollovers without a winner. The last time the NZ Powerball jackpot was won was on June 17th, when a $10 million prize was claimed by a ticket holder from Auckland.
There was a $43 million jackpot on offer in the Powerball draw on Wednesday August 12th but no one managed to hit the winning numbers 10, 16, 25, 29, 32, 34, and Powerball 4 to win, so it has rolled over one final time to hit $50 million. Lotto NZ saw high demand for tickets, both online and in stores, in the run-up to Wednesday's draw, and that looks set to continue for Saturday’s Must Be Won draw.
Lotto NZ spokesperson Marie Winfield said: “Powerball has jackpotted to an incredible $50 million – and it must be won. If the jackpot is won by a single player on Saturday, they'll be taking home the largest prize ever won in Lotto NZ's history.”
Although there was no Powerball winner in Wednesday's draw, one lucky ticket holder from Napier hit the Lotto First Division prize to win $1 million. The current record for the biggest Powerball jackpot ever won is held by a couple from the Auckland area, who landed a jackpot worth $44 million in a Must Be Won draw in November 2016.
Second $50 million prize of 2020
Saturday’s Powerball draw will not be the first one to offer a First Division prize worth $50 million; it’s not even the first of the year. Those honours go to the draw on February 29th 2020, in which a $50.2 million prize was split between two ticket holders, each of them taking home just over $25 million.
That was also a Must Be Won draw and it came about after 16 draws and more than eight weeks without a winner. Incredibly, the two winners that split the record First Division prize were also both from Auckland. One of them purchased their entry online and the other was revealed to be a woman from Hawke’s Bay who purchased the lucky ticket from Countdown Manukau City Mall.
She decided to remain anonymous but said: “It was a total surprise – you never think it will be you. I still can’t believe it. I saw that one of the winning tickets had been bought at the same store where I got mine – but never in a million years did I think it would be me!”
The winner also revealed that after she found out that she won she kept the winning ticket in a phone case under her pillow while she slept. “Not that much sleeping has been happening," she added. "I’ve mostly been scouring the internet for my dream car."
The demand for tickets ahead of February’s Must Be Won draw was very high, with an estimated 2,000 tickets being sold every minute on the day of the draw. Powerball players will get to relive that excitement this Saturday and have a shot at winning the biggest Lotto NZ prize ever seen.