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No major changes afoot for R167 million SA Powerball winner

The South African businessman who won R167 million in the SA Powerball recently has said he doesn’t plan on making any major changes to his life despite the hefty financial gain.

The 67-year-old man from Ballito is a big fan of golf and enjoys taking walks on the beach. For now, all he wants to do with some of his winnings is settle debts, make a few investments and donate some cash to charity.

His win is the second highest in the SA Powerball since February 2019, when someone won R232 million. In July 2021, there was a R158 million win, but that’s slipped to third position in terms of biggest SA Powerball wins for the last three years.

Looking a bit further back, other major SA Powerball wins make for interesting reading. In August 2018, a lucky winner won R145 million. That went to an engineer in Secunda, who said at the time he needed to “properly digest the win because my life has changed forever.” Indeed, it had.

In 2020, there were three big wins – R114 million, R121 million, R135 million. The first of that prolific year came in early February. The R114 million went to a 35-year-old woman, who became the first female in SA Powerball results history to win more than R100 million.

“My four children have been staying with my mother and I have never been able to spend as much time with them as I wished since I had to work in Johannesburg,” she said at the time.

“I am mostly grateful that this money will give me an opportunity to raise my children, to be able to take them to school and have the pleasure of preparing a scrumptious meal that they can enjoy when they get back from school, something that I’ve been wishing for, for a long time.

The Free State man who won R121 million in September 2020 says he checked his ticket approximately 30 times before to make sure he had actually won. He took just two days to step forward to claim his winnings, but made sure he was absolutely certain about his combination of winning numbers first, obviously.

“I still could not believe that I was the big winner that everyone was talking about. I became both excited and anxious when it was confirmed that I had won the R121 million PowerBall jackpot,” he enthused at the time.

“Although I like my furniture, I am ready for new beginnings. I will be buying new furniture and I will split the existing one between my two employees. I also want to pass on our family caravan to our helper. She has always liked it and I think that it will put a smile on her face.”

The R135 million win of 2020 happened in April. It was no late April Fool’s Day joke for the KwaZulu-Natal resident, who pocketed the biggest online win in the history of the SA Powerball back then. The winner used their FNB app to enter, rather than in person at a shop. Hence, the online record at the time.

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