Lotto Powerball jackpot: Single ticket wins $24 million-plus prize

Tonight's Lotto Powerball draw will see more than $25.5m up for grabs.

A single ticket sold in Lower Hutt has won $24,250,000 in tonight’s Lotto Powerball jackpot - the 12th multi-million dollar prize to be won this year.

The winning ticket’s prize is made up of Powerball and a quarter-share of Division One’s $1 million.

A Lotto spokesperson said the lucky prize winner bought their ticket from Woolworths Wainuiomata.

It is the 12th Powerball multi-millionaire of the year and comes just over a month after a $10.3 million prize was won in Wairoa.

Tonight’s Lotto numbers for the big draw are 28, 34, 25, 38, 36, 5.

The bonus ball was 15 and the Powerball number was 1.

Three other tickets without the Powerball number each won $250,000. The winning tickets were sold on MyLotto to two players from Auckland and one player from Hamilton.

A single player won Lotto Strike, collecting $500,000. That ticket was sold at Halfway Store in Whakatāne.

Tonight’s mega prize follows weeks after the September 2 jackpot struck by a lucky player in Wairoa - among parts of Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti Gisborne devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle this year - won $10.3m.

The winner, who the Herald understands is a solo mum, told media in a statement through the New Zealand Lotteries Commission that it had been a year filled with challenges, so her family was thankful and “looking forward to the future”.

A Christchurch couple’s lives were also changed this year when they won $33.5m in a late June draw.

The woman checked her ticket after an evening of doing chores, and quickly found herself struggling to breathe.

“My husband had already gone to bed so I woke him up and said, ‘Can you please check this for me? These numbers are dancing on the paper.

“‘Is it actually real?’”

In August a couple from Paraparaumu won an enormous $37.125 million Powerball prize - the third-largest prize won by a single ticket in Lotto NZ’s history.

The couple, who wished to remain anonymous, said they only buy a ticket when the jackpot is over $30m – and that the latest ticket was bought at the very last minute.

“I was on my way home after work and was craving a chocolate bar, so I quickly popped into the supermarket,” the woman said.

The winning ticket was sold at New World Kāpiti in Paraparaumu. The town has a population of 30,000.

The couple became the 10th Powerball multi-millionaire of the year.