Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Unprecedented demand has seen some MyLotto customers facing delays as they attempt to virtually check their tickets from last night's $50 million Powerball draw.
Seven first-division winners will be $7.18 million richer today, whether they know it yet or not.
The MyLotto app opened later than usual on Sunday morning, at 10am, to handle the huge volume of people checking to see if they had become an overnight multimillionaire.
The regions and stores where the winning tickets were purchased will not be released until midday.
Just under 2 million tickets were sold for the much anticipated, must-be-won draw - far more than usual, Lotto NZ said.
The majority of MyLotto customers could now check their online tickets using the virtual draw as per usual, it said, however overnight processing was taking longer than expected due to the unprecedented demand.
That meant a proportion of MyLotto customers' tickets (fewer than 10 percent) would not be processed until later in the day, meaning they would not be able to be checked electronically using the virtual draw until later on Sunday afternoon.
Those customers would still be able to check their tickets manually against the draw results, Lotto NZ said.
Head of corporate communications Lucy Fullarton apologised to customers affected by the delay.
"We understand many people will be logging on to MyLotto this morning to find out if they are one of the seven winners of $7.1 million from last night. Most of our customers will be able to do this as per usual, but if you are one of the people whose tickets show as unprocessed, we do apologise that we are drawing out the anticipation a little longer."
Fullarton earlier said big winners often shared the wealth with family, friends, charities and their communities, and their lives would be changed.
"It means something different for everyone, and I think all of our winners have their things they come into our winners' room talking about.
"But what we see more than ever is that they want to use it to support their whanau and their friends and their communities, and I expect that will be exactly the same for these seven winners."
The numbers drawn were 22, 35, 10, 30, 21, 37, bonus ball 5 and Powerball, 2.
As no one got the first division plus Powerball, the record-equalling jackpot was shared amongst division two.
"It's amazing that Powerball rolled down to second division and was shared between seven players - it's fantastic to see more of our lucky players get to experience what it's like to win," Lotto NZ chief executive Jason Delamore said.
Fourteen other players won $71,429 through Lotto First Division and one person took home $600,000 through Strike Four.
Delamere said the big winners should phone Lotto NZ's Customer Services team on 0800 695 6886 "to ensure they receive the support they'll need throughout this life-changing experience".
The biggest single winner in Lotto's history took home $44m in 2016.