“Now I’m a Multi-Millionaire”: The Quiet Joy of a Cape Town Pensioner Who Won R13 Million in Powerball Plus
Viable News Team 
IMAGE: SUPPLIED
In a small, familiar corner of Bergvliet where mornings smell like fresh bread from local bakeries and neighbours still wave over garden walls a pensioner walked into a modest retail store with R70 in his pocket. He had done this many times before. The ritual was gentle, almost sacred: select the numbers by hand, breathe a quiet wish, and slip the ticket into his wallet.
He had no idea that this ordinary moment would become the chapter that changed everything.
On November 19, 2025, the Powerball Plus draw transformed that R70 slip of paper into more than R13 million a sum so large it felt like it had blown in on the Cape winds, unexpected and almost unreal.
According to National Lottery operator Ithuba, the married father a man who had spent years working, raising a family, and now living on a modest pension always chose his numbers based on love. Birthdates of children. Birthdates of grandchildren. Little moments that had shaped his life, stitched into digits on a betting slip.
It wasn’t luck alone that brought him here. It was years of small hopes folded into routine.
“I usually play at least twice a week,” he told Ithuba when the news finally sank into his bones. “I often win small amounts, but I’ve never won such a significant amount; it’s truly life changing.”
Then he laughed a soft, disbelieving chuckle and added, “Now I’m a multi-millionaire.”
For a moment, an entire lifetime shifted.
Dreams Deferred, Dreams Revived
The pensioner revealed that his favourite lottery game was the Lotto, a simple pleasure that added a spark to his week. Winning anything more than a few rand had always seemed like a distant dream. Something meant for someone else. Something people talk about, but never live.
Until now.
The first thing he wants. A car. Not a flashy symbol, not a status badge but something practical, something reliable, something dreamed about quietly in the evenings when budgets didn’t quite stretch far enough.
But even with R13 million in his name, he speaks with a gentleness that suggests he has not forgotten the long road that led him here.
“As a pensioner,” he said, “I’m planning to be responsible with my winnings, investing them wisely to secure our retirement. But I also can’t wait to spoil my wife with a bit of shopping.”
There was something strikingly beautiful in that sentiment. After years of stretching rands, of weighing needs against wants, of putting others first he wanted to give his wife the simple joy of choosing something she loves without counting coins twice.
Not extravagance. Appreciation.
Not excess. Gratitude.
A Win Felt Across the Nation
Ithuba CEO Charmaine Mabuza congratulated the winner with heartfelt pride, saying, “We are delighted to celebrate another South African becoming a National Lottery multi-millionaire.”
For Ithuba, this was more than a number on a spreadsheet. It was a moment where luck reached into someone’s quiet life and pulled them into a brighter chapter.
For South Africans reading this story, it became something else to a reminder that sometimes fortune chooses the humble, the patient, the ones who have weathered life’s storms with dignity.
A New Dawn in Bergvliet
In his neighborhood, nothing looks different yet. The same morning sun pours across rooftops. The same birds call out from trees. But somewhere behind one of those doors, a pensioner wakes up with the knowledge that his future and the future of those he loves just opened like a blooming flower.
He still plans to be careful. He still plans to be wise. But tucked between those plans lies excitement, relief, and a joy that seems almost shy.
For most of his life, money was a pressure. A limit. A whisper in the background.
Now, it is possibility.
And in the gentlest way, this windfall feels right not because he needed to be wealthy, but because he deserved a moment where the world finally said:
You have carried so much. Let this lighten your load.
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