The list of top 10 highest jackpot wins in the history of the SA Powerball has a new entry. The winning ticket was bought in Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal and yielded a triumphant R167 million for the entrant.
The sum is the second-highest in Powerball history in South Africa. It’s well worth taking a look at the numbers it beat to get to that position – and the one it didn’t.
First up, the one that the latest win didn’t beat. It was the hefty sum of R232 million, won by a 50-something year old man in Cape Town during 2019. He chose to remain anonymous and, at the time of the win, had no intention to quit his job – but planned to do as much good with his newfound wealth as possible.
In terms of which sum the latest second-highest SA Powerball win ever beat, look back four years ago, when R145 million was claimed in 2018. That number, of course, has slipped to third now on the back of the big win in Ballito.
How SA Powerball rollovers have performed over the last 12 months makes for intriguing reading, too. This graph shows that February 2022’s win took upward of 20 rollovers for the main prize to be one. More than 20 rollovers were also required in the middle of 2021 before the jackpot was won. These are lengthy stretches, but they’re not the norm. As you can see, rollovers in the teens, somewhere between 10 and 19, are more frequent than those in excess of 20.
Returning to the list of top 10 record SA Powerball wins, we move onto fourth spot with 2019’s win of R141 million. Prior to the success, the winner’s wife had a dream about him being showered in gold particles. Now how’s that for a premonition, of sorts.
Moving onto fifth and sixth position, R135 million and R121 million were claimed. Both happened in 2020. The same year brought seventh spot R114.5 million. A year earlier, in 2019, eighth position has just a few R100,000 less for R114.2 million.
Edging closer to falling out of the top 10 are ninth and final spot. They are currently held by R102 million won in 2011 and, for the only figure in the list under R100 million, the R91 million clinched in 2010.
In time, the current top 10 might look quite different. The opening SA Powerball jackpot win is perhaps a sign of things to come. There have been upward of five jackpot wins in the past 12 months and maybe the same period will bring similar wins and more. The aforementioned graph, too, shows that rollovers happen on average of about two months. Granted, there are cases where it takes longer or even shorter, but it’s evident enough that two months is the average waiting period for the main jackpot to be won in the SA Powerball. Let’s see how long the next one takes. Come April-May 2022, we might have another record – perhaps record-breaking – win in South Africa.
