Powerball December: Six in a row make 21 jackpot winners
Have you participated in the SA Powerball draw on 1 December 2020? Are you possibly one of 20 lucky winners who picked six numbers in a sequence from 5 to 10?
Congratulations if you are! You are now R5 million richer and made history in this unusual Powerball lotto draw.
PowerBall draw 1 December 2020
So, let us have a look at what happened in the last Powerball draw and while it makes news across the world.
As every week the Powerball lotto draws take place on Tuesdays and Fridays. The draw last Tuesday, 1 December 2020, will go into the lotto history books for a variety of reasons:
- The winning numbers are 6 consecutive ones: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and Powerball 10
- 21 players picked the right numbers which has never happened before
The draw started at 20h58. The 6 winning numbers were pulled out in the following order: 8, 5, 9, 7, 6 and Powerball 10. If you order these winning numbers in numerical order you will see the sequence of 6 numbers in a row: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
The overall Powerball jackpot was set at R120 million (Powerball jackpot R114 million; Powerball Plus R6 million). The jackpot had not been won for quite some time and therefore had rolled over to a massive amount.
21 jackpot winners
Division 1 saw 20 winners who were able to match 5 correct numbers + PowerBall. Each player therefore wins over R5 million (R5,688,468.21 to be precise). Another 79 players had picked the right numbers but not the Powerball. When looking at these Powerball results it is unbelievable how many people actually play with consecutive single digit numbers!
Calls for fraud and the lottery being a scam have arisen since. Would the SA National Lottery really damage its reputation? It is unexpected for six numbers in a row to be drawn. And it is also not one of our recommendations on how to win the lottery. Nevertheless, 2020 has been quite a strange year. In addition, we need to understand that all numbers in the drum have the same probability to be drawn and while number sequences are unexpected, they are not unusual. Plus, many players seem to go against lotto strategies and actually choose number sequences when picking their lucky numbers. For Tuesday’s PowerBall winners this strategy paid off nicely.
The 20 lucky PowerBall jackpot winners are joined by another winner who won the R5.8 million Powerball Plus jackpot in the same night. There have never been 21 jackpot winners in one night before. Therefore, the Powerball and Powerball Plus draws on 1 December 2020 will make its way into the history books.
The winners are spread across the country. It is reported that 8 winners are from Gauteng, 3 from KZN, 2 from both Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga as well as 1 winner each from Northern Cape, Limpopo and the Free State.
About the SA Powerball
The SA Powerball is offered by the South African National Lottery. To participate you pick 5 numbers between 1 and 50 and an extra number, the Powerball, from 1- 20. So overall you select 6 lucky numbers.
A single Powerball ticket costs R5.00 which you can upgrade into a PowerBall Plus ticket for an additional R2.50. Draws take place every week on Tuesdays and Fridays. They are televised live on Mzansi Magic (channel 161) and NewzRoom Afrika (channel 405) at 20h58.
The Powerball lotto draws made many winners over the years. In 2019 the biggest Powerball jackpot in history of the National Lottery was won. One player walked away with R232 million and added its name to list of biggest lotto winners in South Africa.
How to claim your win
The Lotto Commission has announced that it will look into this unusual draw. This is to ensure that neither fraud nor system failure caused the unexpected Powerball result. We expect that everything worked as expected and hence the players will soon receive their wins. What a nice pre-Christmas present for 21 South African lotto players!
To claim their win, the winners should secure their ticket/receipt and start to fill the official Prize Claim Form. Winnings must be claimed in the jurisdiction of ticket purchase and be collected in person from one of Ithuba’s regional offices. After all necessary checks are done winnings over R50,000 are paid via bank transfer. We assume that all winners play for fun and therefore the lotto winnings are tax-free in South Africa. Nevertheless, the win amount has to be declared to the South African Revenue Service (SARS) as non-taxable income.
What a week it has been for online lotto betting fans! If you want to participate in Ithuba’s National lotteries you either visit your local retailer or play online via the official website. In addition, you can always try lotto betting online via one of our trusted and reviewed bookmakers. Have a look at our best betting sites in SA for lotto betting. Perhaps you can soon add your name to the list of lotto winners.
The SA Powerball is not the only Powerball lotto draw in the world. The most famous one is possibly the US Powerball which recently paid out a record breaking jackpot.
