$50m Lotto Powerball draw: More than 2000 tickets being sold every minute

Saturday, 15 August 2020

Powerball has jackpot to a ‘must be won’ $50 million.

Lotto NZ expects to sell about 2200 tickets every minute ahead of tonight’s must-be-won $50 million Powerball draw.

Spokeswoman Marie Winfield said even before the peak sales time bewteeen 6pm and 7pm ticket sales were massive.

“We were selling nearly 2000 tickets every minute at around 3pm today, but expecting that to increase to at least 2200 per minute during our peak time between 6pm – 7pm.”

More than 2 million tickets have now been bought for the draw.

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Nearly 1.6 million tickets were sold for Wednesday’s $43 million jackpot, which was not struck.

If a single player wins Saturday night’s jackpot, it will be the largest prize won in New Zealand Lotto's history.

Winfield said Saturdays were typically the biggest day for ticket sales.

Redwoodtown Lotto owners Claire Matthews (left) and Peter Matthews have been consistently busy since powerball jackpot to $50m.

“Kiwis often wait until the day of the draw to buy their tickets,” Winfield said.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to buy your ticket early if you want to be in to win, preferably before 5pm when we expect high traffic on our MyLotto website and app.”

With Auckland under alert level 3 due to Covid-19, Winfield said they were seeing more online sales than usual and there had been more than 32,000 new MyLotto registrations since Monday.

Over half of the registrations were in Auckland.

Norman Thurston said he would help his grandchildren and great grandchildren should he win powerball.

Redwoodtown Lotto in Blenheim had a consistent line out the door on Saturday.

The store was well known for being lucky, having had 10 first division winners in the past.

Redwoodtown Lotto co owner Claire Matthews said a lot of their regular players had come in to purchase tickets on Friday, as they were worried New Zealand might have moved into a lockdown.

“We're still really busy today, it hasn’t stopped,” Matthews said.

Peter Hand says if he wins the powerball he will take a holiday once borders open.

“We’ve had quite a few big purchases and quite a few people who don’t usually play Lotto have come in because it’s such a big draw.”

Norman Thurston thought his chances of winning the draw were 'nil”.

“But you’ve got to be in it to win it,” Thurston said.

“I’ve always bought a ticket, I’ve had small wins before.”

Thurston said if he won the jackpot, he did not have any major plans for the money.

“I’ve got grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I’m sure there would be some spending to do.”

Peter Hand was purchasing a ticket on Saturday morning, although he admitted his chances of winning the jackpot were “zilch”.

“My chances are as good as anyone’s I guess,” Hand said.

“If I won, I’d travel but that's going to be awhile away.'

Lotto NZ sold around 2.6 million tickets for the $50m must win draw in February.

Lotto NZ predicted sales would be down on February's draw, given Covid-19 alert levels 3 in Auckland, and 2 elsewhere.