The locations where seven lucky Lotto players bought their tickets have been revealed after last night’s mammoth $50 million must-win draw.
The draw resulted in seven Powerball winners, with around two million tickets sold โ a far higher number than usual.
Each of the seven winners will take home $7.18 million after the jackpot rolled down to Powerball Second Division.
The locations were revealed at midday today after some online customers earlier faced a technical glitch in electronically checking whether they won.
Five of the tickets were bought in Auckland, one was bought in Hamilton, and one was bought in Hastings.
The winning stores were:
- MyLotto (x2) in Auckland
- Pak’n Save Wairau Road in Auckland
- Woolworths Metro Victoria St in Auckland
- Royal Oak Mall Lotto in Auckland
- Shop Rite Dairy in Hamilton
- New World Hastings
“A few lucky Kiwis woke up as freshly minted multi-millionaires this morning,” Lotto said. This afternoon Lotto confirmed two of the big winners have claimed their prizes so far.
Meanwhile, in an update at about 11am, Lotto said all MyLotto ticket processing had now been completed after earlier technical issues affected some customers.
“All MyLotto customers are now able to check their tickets using the online virtual draw.
“Lotto NZ would like to thank customers for their patience while it worked through the very large number of tickets, and wishes everyone the very best of luck.”
Lotto apologises after technical glitch
Earlier, Lotto said the overnight processing of tickets took “longer than expected”, leaving some online customers unable to electronically check whether they won.
Over 90% of MyLotto customers were able to check their online tickets using the virtual draw as normal, according to a spokesperson earlier this morning.
However, “less than 10% of customers will be able to see their ticket on MyLotto but the ticket will not be processed until later in the day. This means they won’t be able to check their ticket electronically using the virtual draw until later on Sunday”.
“This is because Lotto NZ’s overnight processing is taking longer than expected due to the unprecedented demand for tickets in last night’s draw.”
A total of 2.6m tickets were sold for Saturday’s draw, making it the third-largest Powerball draw in history.
The two most popular were in 2016 for a $40m and $44m dollar draw.
Before the issues were resolved, Lotto encouraged affected customers to check their tickets manually against the draw results, which had already been published.
The organisation’s corporate communications head Lucy Fullarton apologised to those customers affected by this delay.
“We understand many people will be logging on to MyLotto this morning to find out if they are one of the seven winners of $7.1 million from last night,” she said.
“Most of our customers will be able to do this as per usual, but if you are one of the people whose tickets show as unprocessed, we do apologise that we are drawing out the anticipation a little longer. Thank you in advance for your patience.
“If you log back on later this afternoon, you will be able to check your ticket then.”
Retail customers are unaffected by the technical glitch and were always able to check their tickets as usual, according to Lotto.
Seven winners take home $7.1 million each
Seven tickets have shared Lotto’s $50 million must-win Powerball jackpot โ each ticket taking home just over $7.1 million.
The winning numbers were: 22, 35, 10, 30, 21, 37 Bonus 05 Powerball 02.
The Powerball prize rolled down to Division 2, with no tickets getting all the numbers needed for Division 1.
“It’s amazing that Powerball rolled down to Second Division and was shared between seven players โ it’s fantastic to see more of our lucky players get to experience what it’s like to win,” said Lotto NZ chief executive Jason Delamore.
“This is going to be life-changing, and not only for the lucky winner themselves, as we know winning big has a huge ripple effect. Most of our big winners share their prize with others, including family, friends, communities, and charities.”
The winning Strike numbers were: 22, 35, 10, 30.
One ticket won Strike’s jackpot, taking home $600,000.
The winning Strike ticket was sold at Jalaram Dairy in Auckland.
Due to the exceptionally high interest in the draw, Lotto earlier advised people who bought tickets online to take a screenshot before it took place so they could manually check them and avoid crashing the Lotto website.