"This win rounds out an incredible year of luck, with 16 lucky Kiwis becoming overnight multi-millionaires with Powerball First Division in 2019," Lotto said.
Five other Lotto players also won $166,667 with Lotto First Division tonight. The winning tickets were sold at Pak'nSave Silverdale, Royal Oak Mall Lotto, Countdown Otorohanga, Mosgiel New World and MyLotto in Auckland.
Strike Four rolled over tonight and will be $400,000 on Wednesday night.
"It has been a night of winning, with more than 300 extra prizes also drawn tonight with Lotto's Triple Dip Christmas promotion – including a top prize of $1m. The $1m winning promotion voucher was sold at Countdown Dinsdale in Hamilton."
Five other lucky Lotto players will be driving away with a Jaguar I-PACE All Electric SUV with Lotto's Triple Dip Christmas promotion.
Tonight's Powerball haul is the last big Lotto win of the year.
Over the past decade, 374 Kiwis have become millionaires after winning the jackpot, and collectively Lotto players have won almost $4 billion.
The biggest win came in 2016 when a young couple from the Hibiscus Coast, who had been "busting their guts" to buy their first home, stopped by a dairy to get their regular ticket.
But that weekend, they won the biggest ever Lotto prize - $44m.
"As soon as I saw I had all the numbers on one line I just yelled 'holy ****!' - my boss thought I'd chopped my arm off with a saw," the man told the Herald at the time.
And in 2013, a lucky punter scooped what was then the biggest amount won by a single player in Lotto NZ history, a whopping $33m. The winner bought their ticket at One Step Ahead in Ponsonby, Auckland, and played using their own numbers. They played every week before the big win.
And last year, the winner of a $20.2m jackpot kept their lucky ticket unwittingly tucked in their wallet for days before they checked if they'd won.
"It was fun to dream for a while.
"Eventually I went back to the store to check my ticket, I had a bit of a knot in my stomach when I handed it over — I guess I was hoping it could be me.
"The Lotto lady handed me a piece of paper that said '$20.2 million' on it – it was a huge sense of relief."
