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Michael Bradley / Stuff
Lotto is holding its 2000th drawing on Saturday night, after starting in 1987.
After 33 years and making 963 bettors millionaires, Lotto celebrates its 2,000th draw on Saturday night.
Powerball has $ 4 million and Strike $ 200,000 for the special drawing, where players can also enter to win one of five cash prizes of $ 2000.
Lotto NZ has given away $ 4,314,397,953 in prizes to 1st division winners of the Lotto, Powerball and Strike games since its first broadcast in 1987.
It all started on Saturday, August 1, 1987, after the Government approved the creation of the game in 1986.
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The drawing was organized by Doug Harvey and Ann Wilson in Auckland, and Division One, which was $ 359,808, was divided among four people.
Cameron Burnell / Stuff
The tickets for the first lottery drawing were kept by Taranaki’s wife, Iris Clark.
In the first year of the lottery, bettors spent nearly $ 249 million (now equivalent to $ 525 million) on the lottery.
Lotto Strike was introduced in 1993, before Powerball was created in February 2001.
In the early 2000s, 67 percent of the population regularly played the lottery.
Winning Wheel began in August 2004, in which a contestant with a winning 16-digit serial number landed an all-expenses-paid trip to Auckland to appear on the show and spin a six-foot diameter wheel to win a prize.
The winning wheel ended in July 2015 and Lotto then went on to two nights a week, Saturday and Wednesday.
By mid-2007, more than $ 3.75 billion in prizes had been paid out to more than 63 million winners.
The luckiest lottery region per capita is currently the West Coast, followed by Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Bay of Plenty, and Taranaki.
The luckiest stores are Unichem Stortford Lodge Pharmacy in Hastings with 49 wins, Richmond Night N Day in Nelson with 35 wins and Coastlands Lotto Paraparaumu with 33 wins.
The most Powerball won on a single ticket was the $ 44 million won by a Hibiscus Coast couple in November 2016.
On Wednesday, a player from Auckland took home $ 8.3 million with Powerball First Division.
