On Tuesday 19 February, the National Lottery Operator ITHUBA, announced that after 24 rollovers, the record-breaking PowerBall jackpot had been won by a single ticket holder.
ITHUBA has confirmed that the winner of the historic R232 Million PowerBall jackpot has come forward to claim their winnings on Monday 25 February 2019. According to ITHUBA, the winner says they heard on the radio that the anonymous winning ticket was bought at the OK Mini Mark in Tygerdal, Goodwood, Western Cape. “The winner said that he then decided to go check if he had won anything and to his disbelief, he discovered that he was actually holding the winning ticket”, said Khensani Mabuza, Corporate Relations Executive at ITHUBA.
Since the announcement of the R232 Million PowerBall jackpot win, there has been an increasing interest from South Africans through social and mainstream media, regarding the whereabouts of the winner. ITHUBA says that they are happy to finally tell the story of the biggest jackpot winner in the history of the South African National Lottery.
In a televised interview on Tuesday 26 February, the winner, a blue-collar worker in his 50’s, said that the psychological counselling and financial advice he received from ITHUBA, has helped him to put things into perspective regarding his next financial move. These services are part of ITHUBA’s Winner Services package and come at no additional cost to the winner.
Prior to this win on 19 February 2019, the PowerBall jackpot had reached R210 Million for Friday the 15th and in celebration of the then highest jackpot, ITHUBA embarked on a campaign which they called the #210PowerBallRandomActsofKindness challenge. As part of the National campaign, ITHUBA surprised the public with ‘random acts of kindness’ which included randomly paying for customers’ fuel, groceries and taxi-fare.
The winner becomes the richest National Lottery jackpot winner in South Africa, shedding off the title from the 34 year-old R145 Million jackpot winner in August 2018.
