Lotto: One person becomes a millionaire, main prize jackpots to $23m this weekend

Lotto's big prize has jackpotted to $23 million this weekend.

One lucky person became a million dollars richer last night, but the real prize is up for grabs on Saturday.

The $1m winner bought their golden ticket at Paper Plus Ponsonby in Auckland.

But as Powerball was not struck on Wednesday night the big prize rolls over to Saturday night - with a jaw-dropping jackpot of $23 million.

The initial results were up on the Lotto website before 9pm tonight.

One lucky Gisborne player won $200,000, with the winning Strike Four ticket sold at Grant Bros in the Poverty Bay city on the east coast.

The numbers for the massive Lotto Powerball draw were: 30, 40, 20, 18, 4 and 10.

The bonus number was 25, and the Powerball was 7.

Lotto's jackpot prize ticked over into the mammoth multi-millions after the $19.3m prize was not struck on Saturday night.

Four people came close to winning that prize - the biggest since before the level 4 Covid lockdown - but instead split Division One's $1m, collecting $250,000 each.

Before Saturday's draw, Marie Winfield from Lotto said it was the highest jackpot since the $50 million "Must Be Won" draw on February 29.

That draw saw two lucky winners from Auckland and Hawke's Bay each take home $25.1m.

Lotto Powerball jackpotted to the mouth-watering $50m after it wasn't struck that previous Wednesday – when the kitty had reached $42m.

The biggest single win in Lotto's history was the $44m won via a ticket sold at the Dairy Flat Food Mart in North Auckland in November 2016.

Ahead of the draw Lotto NZ released advice from those lucky winners for future newly minted Kiwi Lotto players.

Winfield said that before the nationwide lockdown 75 per cent of sales were from stores and only 25 per cent were through MyLotto or the Lotto NZ App.

Now 39 per cent of sales are purchased online, while 61 per cent are still bought in store.

"First of all, don't have a heart attack! That's the most important thing to remember," laughed one of the winners.

"But seriously, my best piece of advice is to remember to eat and sleep in the first two weeks. It's the little things like that that are easy to forget in the early days after a big win."