UPDATED 9.01PM The $44 million Powerball prize has been won tonight.

The winning ticket was sold in Albany on Auckland's North Shore.

The winning numbers for tonight's record breaking $44 million Lotto Powerball draw are 3, 21, 22, 1, 30, 29 and the bonus number is 5.

The winning powerball number is 6.

Earlier today Lotto was anticipating the sale of more than two million tickets for the Must-Be-Won Powerball draw.

And judging by some of the queues seen around New Zealand today, that could well have been right.

Tonight's jackpot is the biggest ever in Lotto history, ahead of July's $40 million Powerball draw attracted record sales, when more than 2.7m tickets entered into the draw.

Last Saturday's $38 million Powerball draw saw the sale of 1.85 million Lotto tickets.

Today, Matilda Patia, who works at one of New Zealand's top selling Lotto shops, Pak n' Save Manukau, said ahead of the July jackpot, the line stretched out into the car park - and she was expecting something similar this time around.

At Rotorua's Lucky Lottery Shop, the lunchtime line went out the door, and in Tauranga's Bayfair Lotto store, people had queued since 8.50am.

Lotto NZ's spokesperson, Kirsten Robinson said the expected ticket sales for the country's biggest Powerball draw ever are three times more than those for a lower jackpot level.

If there are no first division winners, the jackpot will roll down to the next division where there are winners.

If there is more than one winner in that division the total will be shared evenly.

Earlier today, at Pak n' Save Manukau, Lotto presenter Sonia Gray manned the tills, saying selling tickets was harder than her day job.

Punter Jessica North said if she won tonight she'd keep $5m for herself and disperse the rest between charities.