The dream of becoming an overnight Lotto Powerball multi-millionaire two days out from Christmas is over New Zealand.

Tonight’s $16 million Big Wednesday draw was not struck.

The numbers were: 38, 27, 26, 34, 25, 19. The Powerball was 8 and the Bonus Ball 11.

While Powerball didn’t go, three players won $333,333 each by winning First Division. The winning tickets were sold at Pak N Save Silverdale in Silverdale, New World Stonefields in Auckland, and on MyLotto to a player from Auckland.

Lotto Powerball will now jackpot to $18 million on Boxing Day.

If it goes on Saturday, it will come after a succession of earlier big wins in 2020.

In late November, one Blenheim ticket buyer pocketed $9m after winning Lotto Powerball.

That came just a few weeks after a Palmerston North player won $14.3m.

An Aucklander struck big in September, taking home $8.3m.

In the biggest draw of the year, 10 lucky winners won $5m each after sharing the mammoth $50m Powerball jackpot in August.

Six of the winners were from Auckland, with one each from Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North and Invercargill.

In a big year of wins, in May it was revealed that Lotto had created 21 millionaires in the first 21 weks of the year.

By the end of the fifth month of the year, there had been 16 overnight millionaires with Lotto and Strike, with a further five multi-millionaires with Powerball.

A Hamilton couple became New Zealand’s latest Powerball multi-millionaires after scoring themselves $10.3m in mid-May.

The man lost his job during the first Covid-19 lockdown and, after discovering they were winners, he decided to surprise his wife.

Cutting out an article from a newspaper about how someone from Hamilton had won, and sticking it in an envelope, the man waited for his wife, a healthcare worker, to arrive home for lunch.

When the wife arrived home, the man asked her to open the envelope.

“I said, ‘Why are you showing me this?’ He replied, ‘It’s us, we are the winners’,” the woman said at the time.

“We’re still in shock, these types of things don’t happen to people like us. We just want to be as normal as possible – we don’t want this to change us.

“We feel incredibly lucky and want to set ourselves up for the future, but also look at how we can help others.”

Less than a month before, a couple from Manawatu bagged themselves $13.2m with Powerball.

The man said it was an incredible feeling, with a million thoughts running through their minds about what they could do with the money – for themselves and their friends.

“That’s what is going to make it special for us – the pleasure we will get from helping people,” he said.

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