The $50 Million Connection: Five Lucky Powerball Players Celebrate Best Week Ever!

Seven people’s lives changed last Saturday night after each winning $7.18 million with Powerball in Lotto NZ’s $50 million Must Be Won draw.

Five have already got their parties started, but two mystery winners are still to come forward to claim their prize.

The Hamilton winner said he only buys a ticket when the Powerball jackpot hits $10 million.  So, when he saw on Sunday that his local store had sold one of the winning tickets, he quickly checked his. 

“When they showed me the amount all I could say was ‘nah, surely not?!’”

He says winning isn’t going to change who he is but admits “it’s going to make life so much easier.”

Two winners claimed their winnings on Sunday afternoon, then one a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

One of the Auckland MyLotto winners said everyone in his office was talking about ‘this huge Must Be Won draw on the weekend’, so he bought only the ‘fifth or sixth’ Lotto ticket of his life – for it to turn out a big winner.

Another of the Auckland winners who bought her ticket at Pak n Save Wairau Rd said she needed a couple of days to ‘chill and absorb the news’ before she claimed her prize.

She says she didn’t get much sleep and was “really scared of losing that ticket!”

“I spent a lot of time googling ‘what to do when you’ve won lotto’,” the woman laughed.

With five tickets now claimed, the other two winners are still to come forward.

“It’s a bit unusual but not unheard of for big winners not to claim immediately – most Powerball winners claim within a few days – but sometimes there can be a delay if they’re away, busy or have even temporarily forgotten they bought it in the first place,” says Lotto NZ Corporate Communications Manager, Sarah McCormack.

After a couple of weeks if winners haven’t claimed, Lotto NZ will start taking steps to find them.

“Making sure our winners receive their prizes in a reasonable timeframe is a critical part of what we do, but it can be a bit of a balancing act between giving our winners the space to have that ‘winning’ moment, and making sure they know they are holding a winning ticket and need to claim their prize,” said Sarah.

Lotto NZ saw a whopping 2.6 million Powerball tickets bought by players all around Aotearoa for the big draw – and Chief Executive Jason Delamore says 100% of the profits will go to thousands of great causes.

“A huge thank you to our players across New Zealand who really got into the spirit of the game and got the whole nation buzzing.

“It was wonderful to hear people dreaming about what they would do if they hit the jackpot, and it will be equally great over time to see money raised from those ticket sales returned to communities across New Zealand,” said Jason.

Powerball winners June 2024 $50 million Must Be Won draw

Our advice to anyone who had a ticket in Saturday night’s draw – especially those who bought their ticket in Auckland or are Auckland-based – is to check their ticket as soon as possible.  

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