Lotto Powerball $24.25 million prize claimed, ticket sold at Woolworths Wainuiomata

Lotto NZ has today confirmed that the $24.25 million Powerball prize has been claimed.

The winning ticket was sold at Woolworths Wainuiomata in Lower Hutt.

Head of corporate communications Lucy Fullarton said Lotto was delighted for the winner and pleased to have the prize safely claimed.

“We don’t have any further details to give at this stage, but we will have more to share over the next few days,” Fullarton said.

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

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.

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.

The Wairoa winner, who the Herald understands is a solo mum, told media 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?’”