‘Blessed’ unemployed North West mother claims Friday’s R158m PowerBall jackpot

A NORTH West mom who is unemployed has come forward to claim the R158 million PowerBall jackpot.

She has won the biggest Powerball jackpot this year, making her the second-highest PowerBall jackpot winner in the history of the South African lottery.

The winner played using the Absa banking app and spent R15 on the winning ticket, using the manual selection method to select the winning numbers of 5, 12, 15, 28, 29, and the PowerBall number 14.

The unemployed mother told Ithuba: “No, I'm not lucky, I'm blessed.

“I'm still in disbelief, overwhelmed yet very excited.

“The money could not have come at a better time for my family as I lost my job last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

On selecting the winning numbers, the winner said she had been playing the same numbers across PowerBall and Lotto games for a while.

“On Tuesday, I missed the live draw show for some reason, so I decided to check the draw results on my 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,” said the winner.

When asked what she planned to do with her new-found fortune, she said: “I would love to travel to Durban, as I have never been there before and I have always wanted to go there for a family vacation at the sea.

“A portion of the winnings will go towards building and furnishing our dream home, with the help of an interior designer and the best architect, to ensure that everything I have always dreamt of as a little girl, becomes exactly what I envision.

“We plan to invest a significant amount of our winnings, allowing for my family and I to live comfortably.”