Boss gives cheeky warning to employees who won $53m in Powerball
The boss of a group of 20 mine workers who struck gold in last week’s Powerball jackpot expects they'll all walk away leaving him scrambling for staff.
The night shift workers from the West Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie held one of three winning tickets in the record $160 million Powerball jackpot on Thursday.
Together the miners won $53 million, each pocketing $2.6 million.
The group's manager at the mine, Chris Wood, said they are great workers and hopes they continue to show up for their shifts despite their newfound riches.
“I’m ecstatic, I’m very happy for each of them. I expect I might lose them though," he told the ABC.
“I told them I will run after them and steal their ticket if they don’t come back!”
A ‘one-off’ chance creates 20 new millionaires
It is the second time this year that a Kalgoorie-Boulder lottery syndicate has won a mega Powerball prize. But it almost didn’t happen.
One of the new millionaires has revealed it was a last-minute decision to pick up a ticket, and that the group hadn’t played Lotto together before.
“It was just a one-off because it was a big draw,” he told Perth radio station 6PR.
“We all put $100 in, [a] spur of the moment sort of thing.
“We just couldn’t believe it.”
Eight months earlier another Kalgoorlie group, called ‘Goldfriends, let's pay our mortgages,’ took out a $63 million Powerball win.
Each of those 250 members claimed around $260,000 each.
Life changed in a second
Along with the lucky miners was a blue-collar worker from Melbourne and a dad from western Sydney who only picked up a Powerball ticket at the eleventh hour.
“This is amazing,” he told Lotto officials on Friday morning.
“To think I almost missed out on getting an entry into the draw. I had to rush out and grab one yesterday before the draw closed.
He added that after a difficult period recently, his family’s life “changed in a second".
While the Victorian winner declared his retirement immediately following Thursday’s jackpot.
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