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.
