$35m Lotto jackpot: How you could spend Powerball prize

How you could spend your fortune.

Powerball has ballooned to its biggest jackpot for months, with $35 million up for grabs tonight.

If a single player wins the first division it will be the second largest Powerball prize in the game's almost 20-year history.

Lotto NZ's head of communications Marie Winfield said it's too early to predict how many tickets will be sold before tonight's draw, but they are definitely expecting an increase on last Saturday.

"The number of tickets sold for the Saturday 15 February and Wednesday 19 February draws have been approximately 1.2 million and 1.1 million respectively," Winfield said.

Queues at Countdown Hobsonville for tonight's $35 million draw. Photo / Supplied

But given that your chances of pocketing that first division pay day are 1 in 383,838 it's perhaps most realistic to spend that money in your head.

While we can't help with the odds, we can - hypothetically - push you in the right, or wrong, direction with the spending part.

Here's what $35 million could get you.

* 38 three-bedroom homes in Auckland at the city's average sale price;
* One luxury estate on the shore of Italy's stunning Lake Como - for example, the $35m Lakeside Villa Giuseppina;
* 53 McLaren 720s Spiders;
* 14,893,617 avocados from Countdown;
* 71,604 premium full digital and print subscriptions to the Herald;
* 2,536,231 disposable respirator masks from Dick Smith to combat coronavirus;
* Sponsorship of 7478 children through World Vision;
* 17,957 iPhone 11 Pro 64GBs;
* Sonny Bill Williams' Toronto Wolfpack salary for seven years;
* LeBron James' NBA Lakers salary for 11 months;
* 21,472 GUCCI Soho small leather disco bags;
* 128,440 platinum seat five-game Auckland Blues Super Rugby memberships;
* A Falcon private jet - it costs just over $34m according to today's exchange rate.

You can afford smashed avocado and an Auckland home if you win tonight's $35 million lotto jackpot. Photo / File

Five lucky players split $1m for First Division on Wednesday - but no one clinched the $30m Powerball prize which has surged to $35m.

The numbers three days ago were: 25, 35, 12, 31, 24 and 16. The bonus ball was 1 and Powerball was 9.

Tonight's draw will be the largest Powerball jackpot since last October last year when two Aucklanders shared $38m.

The largest ever Powerball win came in November 2016 when a couple from the Hibiscus Coast won $44m after purchasing their ticket from Dairy Flat Food Mart and Liquor.

While Powerball has not been struck in 2020, five millionaires have been made with First Division Lotto. Three of those prizes were won in the South Island (Temuka, Alexandra and Tuatapere).

Temuka Village Post has been on a remarkable run. In just seven days the store sold three winning tickets with a combined total of more than $1 million in prizes.

Apple iPhone Xs MAX. Photo / Supplied

Sonny Bill Williams earns a cool $5 million salary to play for the Toronto Wolfpack. Photo / File

Largest Powerball wins by an individual

1. November 2016, $44.1m, Dairy Flat Food Mart and Liquor, Auckland

2. September 2013, $33.1m ,One Step Ahead, Auckland

3. September 2017, $30.2m, Richmond Superette, Taupo

4. October 2010, $28.7m, Mobil Papakura, Auckland

5. May 2017, $27m, Martina Four Square, Thames

Kalgin Island in Alaska will set you back $550,000. Photo / Supplied

Israel Adesanya with his McLaren Spider. Photo / File

'Luckiest' numbers / winning information

• The Powerball drawn the most times is 2 (165 times);

• Powerball First Division has been won 184 times;

• The biggest Powerball prize won in 2019 went to a woman who won $22.3m after she bought her ticket from the Inglewood Bookcentre in Taranaki;

• Sixteen players won the Powerball jackpot in 2019;

• 40 players became overnight millionaires in 2019;

• The northernmost Powerball winner was a player from Taipa in Northland, who won $5m in May 2019;

• The southernmost Powerball winner was from Invercargill - they won $20m in 2013.

• Players have been known to keep winning tickets in weird and wonderful places, including taped to their bodies, underneath their pillow, inside the cover of an obscure DVD and even inside a piano stool.

• The luckiest store of all is Unichem Stortford Lodge Pharmacy in the Hawke's Bay, which has sold a mammoth 49 First Division winning tickets worth more than $39m in winnings.