Christmas punch: Lotto Powerball is going to beg

The dream of becoming a Lotto Powerball billionaire overnight to two days before Christmas is over in New Zealand.

Tonight’s Big Wednesday $ 16 million drawing fell through.

The numbers were: 38, 27, 26, 34, 25, 19. The Powerball was 8 and the Bonus Ball 11.

Although Powerball did not attend, three players earned $ 333,333 each by winning the Primera Division. Winning tickets were sold at Pak N Save Silverdale in Silverdale, New World Stonefields in Auckland, and at MyLotto to a player from Auckland.

Lotto Powerball will now win the top prize of $ 18 million on Boxing Day.

If it continues on Saturday, it will come after a succession of previous big wins in 2020.

In late November, a Blenheim ticket buyer pocketed $ 9 million after winning the Lotto Powerball.

That came just weeks after a Palmerston North player made $ 14.3 million.

An Aucklander made big in September, taking home $ 8.3 million.

In the biggest drawing of the year, 10 lucky winners won $ 5 million each after sharing in the gigantic $ 50 million Powerball jackpot in August.

Six of the winners were from Auckland, with one from Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North and Invercargill.

In a great year of victories, in May it was revealed that Lotto had created 21 millionaires in the first 21 weeks of the year.

At the end of the fifth month of the year, there were 16 millionaires overnight with Lotto and Strike, with another five billionaires with Powerball.

A Hamilton couple became New Zealand’s last Powerball billionaires after earning $ 10.3 million in mid-May.

The man lost his job during the first Covid-19 lockdown and, after discovering that they were winners, decided to surprise his wife.

Cutting a newspaper article about how someone from Hamilton had won and stuffing it into an envelope, the man waited for his wife, a healthcare worker, to come home for lunch.

When the wife got home, the man asked her to open the envelope.

“I said, ‘Why are you showing me this?’ He replied: ‘We are us, we are the winners,’ “said the woman at the time.

“We are still in a state of shock, this kind of thing doesn’t happen to people like us. We just want to be as normal as possible, we don’t want this to change us.

“We feel incredibly lucky and want to prepare for the future, but we also see how we can help others.”

Less than a month earlier, a Manawatu couple had made $ 13.2 million with Powerball.

The man said it was an incredible feeling, with a million thoughts running through their minds about what they could do with the money, for themselves and their friends.

“That is what will make it special to us: the pleasure we will get from helping people,” he said.