Luck of the draw: how a few numbers changed people’s lives in 2021

On July 27, a North West mother who lost her job due to the Covid-19 pandemic received a surprise windfall — winning R158m to become the second-highest Powerball jackpot winner in the history of the SA National Lottery.

The win also made her the biggest lottery winner so far this year.

The woman, who like many major winners asked to remain anonymous, at the time said: “The winning numbers keep replaying in my mind. I’ve been playing the same numbers across Powerball and LOTTO games for a while now.

“On Tuesday, I checked the draw results on my Absa banking app and I had the most unexpected shock of my life.

“When I saw the winning Powerball numbers, I knew that I had won the Powerball jackpot of R158m, but I kept on checking the numbers throughout the day to ensure that I was not mistaken or that I would wake up from a dream.”

She spent only R15 on the winning ticket using the manual selection method to select the winning numbers of 05, 12, 15, 28, 29, and Powerball number 14.

She planned to build and furnish her dream home. “I would love to travel to Durban, as I have never been there before and I have always wanted to go for a family vacation at the sea,” she said.

“I plan to invest a significant amount of our winnings, allowing for my family and I to live comfortably. The rest of the winnings will be placed in an education trust, towards the children’s education, and a portion will be donated to charity.”

For a Johannesburg man, winning R8m in the PowerBall Plus draw meant another shot at trying to get his wife back after she left him for always being broke.

“I want my wife back so I can rebuild my life with her and our children and have our dream home. The rest of the winnings will go towards purchasing a brand new house for my parents, paying off all my debt, and I will invest the rest of my winnings,” he said.

The winner also wanted to buy a new car and save a portion of his winnings to be able to give his children the opportunity to go to university one day.

After being unemployed since 2016, a 28-year-old former general worker from Groblersdal in Limpopo also had her life altered when she bagged a R50m PowerBall Plus jackpot in November.

“I had been unemployed since 2016 and was surviving off my mother’s small income. Before that, I was a general worker on the farms. I decided to play the PowerBall when my boyfriend encouraged me to,” she said.

Building homes for both her mother and her future mother-in-law were now her priority.

The one-year anniversary of her husband's death is one a stay-at-home mom will never forget, as it was on this day that she checked her PowerBall ticket and saw she had won R56m. 

The widow said she had been playing the same numbers since PowerBall launched in SA.

“I was not aware that I had won until I came across an article in my local newspaper looking for one of the R56m PowerBall jackpot winners,” she said.

For a Western Cape unemployed mother of five, who depended on social grants to care for her family, bagging a R14m Lotto jackpot was an opportunity for her to move to a better area and build a bigger house.

One of the most recent big winners was a 38-year-old Ekurhuleni man employed at a gas company who almost misplaced his winning R63m Lotto ticket.

“Since playing from 2013, I would normally use a combination of my own lucky numbers, whether it's family birth dates or my children’s ages.

“We had lived with our extended family for many years until we decided to move out and rent a house in the same neighbourhood. Now we have an opportunity to buy our own home,” he said.

Lottery operator Ithuba CEO, Charmaine Mabuza: “There have been some incredible wins this year.”

According to the operator, by December 21, 51 millionaires were created across all lottery games during the year, with 18 millionaires created by PowerBall and PowerBall PLUS.

Ithuba said it was difficult to keep track of winners, as they choose to move on with their lives.

TimesLIVE