NATIONAL NEWS & VIDEO - Someone is still walking around with a multimillion-rand ticket in their pocket that still needs to claimed.
On Tuesday, one lucky winner scooped R232 million in the PowerBall draw.
The winner remains unknown and this has prompted lottery operator Ithuba to publicly urge the Western Cape winner to come forward.
Khensani Mabuza from Ithuba spoke on eNCA and said they were expecting the winner to surface by Thursday. She said Ithuba knew where the ticket was bought, how much was paid for it and which store they bought the ticket from.
“We know the ticket was bought at an OK minimart in Tigerdal, Goodwood, by someone who manually selected their numbers.”
The winner spent just over R20. They have 365 days to claim their millions before the ticket expires.
Mabuza said they preferred it when they heard winners had manually chosen their numbers, as there might be a story around that, instead of it just being random or quick pick numbers.
Ithuba always advises players to treat every ticket as a winning one and write their names and ID numbers on the back of all tickets.
This is to link the rightful owner of the ticket with the winning ticket. In the event that a lost ticket is picked up by someone, Ithuba and the national lottery will check behind the ticket for a name and ID number and contact the person as a safety measure.
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The winner will receive the entire 232 million without needing to pay tax, she said.
Meanwhile, Ithuba has disputed allegations that the lottery system is rigged.
“Rest assured that there is no human intervention at all with the Random Number Generator system – the winning numbers are automatically generated and the entire process is audited by independent auditors, which have been approved by The National Lottery Commission,” they said in a tweet.
