Lotto results: Powerball jackpots to $50m after no big winner in $42m draw

Wednesday, 26 February 2020

Lotto Powerball's whopping $42 million jackpot has rolled over to set up a must-win $50m draw this Saturday.

The results from Wednesday night's Lotto draw were: 30, 8, 2, 33, 21, 3. The bonus ball was 13 and the power ball was 6.

While no-one had claimed the jackpot, six people won the first division for a $166,667 prize each. These winners came from across the country with one each from Northland, Auckland, Whanganui, Wellington, Nelson and Dunedin.

'The jackpot has reached a jaw-dropping $50 million and must be won this Saturday. If a single player is lucky enough to win Powerball, they'll enter Lotto NZ's history books as the largest prize winner ever!' Lotto NZ head of communications Marie Winfield said in a statement following Wednesday's draw.

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In a must-win draw, if no single ticket wins Powerball First Division, the prize pool rolls down to the next highest division with winners and the money is shared amongst them.

If a single player wins Powerball, they'll be the biggest winner in Lotto history.

'With a Powerball Must Be Won this Saturday, it's guaranteed that one or more lucky Kiwis are going to win big – even if the prize is split,' Winfield said.

'Must Be Won jackpots are very rare, and truly life changing. Whether it's one lucky winner or more, we're so excited that we'll be making more New Zealanders millionaires this week!'

On Wednesday night's draw, Strike Four also rolled over and will be a $1m on Saturday night, meaning Strike must be won too. 'It's a double whammy – two of our jackpots must be won on Saturday, it's going to be a big night!' Winfield said.

The $50m jackpot is the biggest Powerball jackpot ever for New Zealand with the previous highest back in 2016 when it reached $44m. Those winnings were taken home by a young couple on the Hibiscus Coast.

Winfield told Stuff that the number of tickets being sold for Wednesday's $42m draw had been looking like they would be the highest seen since that 2016 draw.

She said that for a typical draw, Lotto would sell around half a million tickets – but for Wednesday night's draw, it was expecting more than three times that amount.

Had the $42m jackpot been won by one individual on Wednesday, it would have been second largest Lotto Powerball jackpot in the country's history. In October 2019, the jackpot reached $38m but that was split by two families who took home $19.1m each.

However the chances of someone actually taking out the jackpot are slim. Believe it or not, it is more likely for someone to be struck by lightning or bitten by a shark, than win big in Lotto.

University of Auckland professor of biostatistics Thomas Lumley told Stuff that the chance of getting the winning numbers - all six Lotto numbers plus the Powerball - was 1 in 38 million per line.