A Coffs Harbour man has revealed himself as the mystery winner of more than $60 million from Thursday’s jackpot Powerball draw.
The man’s ticket was one of just two first division winning entries nationally in the more than $120 million jackpot pool.
His $63,309,056.98 prize is one of the biggest single lottery wins in Australia.
Thursdays other winner was a Kalgoorlie syndicate of 250 people, known as the “Goldfields, let’s pay our mortgages” group, WA Today reports. Each of the lucky WA winners collects about $260,000 each.
“It’s a little bit surreal, it’s just wonderful for the town,” one winner, Nadia Turner, told Perth’s Radio 6PR on Friday.
“It was very exciting … Kalgoorlie is a small place, everybody knows everybody. It was the realisation that we are sharing it with a lot of people in the community.”
Back in NSW, the lucky lone $63 million winner’s ticket wasn’t registered, which meant The Lott officials had no way of contacting the buyer. Instead, they had to wait for him to get in touch – but that didn’t take long.
The man, described only as “middle-aged” said he checked his ticket on Friday morning.
“I scanned it on the app. I just couldn’t believe it. It came up as division one. Oh mate, it’s huge,” he said.
“I’ve started a wish list already. Straight up – a red sports car, a new house, holidays, you name it. I also really want to look after my family.
“It’s funny as I’ve been watching the news all morning, and they were saying someone’s won Powerball in Coffs Harbour. I’m sitting here thinking, ‘I can’t believe that winner is me’.
“I’m going to have a weekend of celebrations with my family, but I still have to work today.”
Thursday’s $120 million Powerball draw is the second-biggest prize offered in an Australian lottery. It was topped only by a $150 million Powerball draw in September 2019, which was shared by three winning tickets.
There were also 36 division two winners, who shared more than $2.7 million, receiving $77,385.90 each. There were 5,558,090 winners in divisions two to nine, who collected $100,574,184.70 in prizes.
There have now been three Powerball division one winning entries across Australia so far in 2022 that have scored more than $200 million.
In 2021, 14 Powerball division one winners across Australia pocketed more than $550.1 million in prize money.
During this time, Powerball offered an $80 million jackpot three times – the biggest prize offered by any Australian lottery game during the year.
Of the 14 Powerball division one winning entries in 2021, seven landed in NSW, four in Queensland, two in Victoria and one in WA.
The winning numbers in Powerball draw 1345 on Thursday 24 February 2022 were 6, 15, 9, 27, 32, 28, 33. The all-important Powerball number was 8.
