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The unusual sequence of numbers that won dad $40m Powerball jackpot

A South Australian father who took home the $40 million Powerball has revealed how he chose the unique winning numbers, saying his family are “over-the-moon”.

The jackpot was the state’s largest in the past decade and the father, who lives in a regional community on the outskirts of Adelaide, revealed how he used his family’s birthdays to select a very odd sequence of numbers.

While every number has an equal chance of being drawn from the barrel of 35, seven of last night’s numbers from the main barrel fell between 2 and 14 – producing remarkably small winning numbers.

A South Australian father has taken home the $40 million Powerball. Photo: The Lott
A South Australian father has taken home the $40 million Powerball. Photo: The Lott

The winning numbers were 7, 5, 13, 4, 2, 14 and 11 and the Powerball was number 14.

I checked the numbers and recognised that a few of them were mine, so I double checked them again.

“I showed my wife and she said ‘this can’t be true, something must be wrong here’. We didn’t believe it until the news was confirmed this morning.”

The father, aged in his 50s, said he had been playing Powerball for about seven years and would usually buy QuickPicks, which selects the numbers at random.

“A little while ago I thought I would change it up a bit and so I marked a coupon using my large family’s birthdates.

The jackpot was the state’s largest during in past decade. Photo: The Lott
The jackpot was the state’s largest during in past decade. Photo: The Lott


“Once I changed the numbers, I started to win a few small things here and there so I thought to myself ‘I’m not going to change these, I’m going to stick to them.’

“I’ve never won anything like this!”

When asked what he intended to do with the money, the father said it was “family first,” and he waned to help the local community by giving back to charities.

“We’ve been doing it tough the last few years so this will make a whole world of difference to my family,” he said.

The last time a single Powerball entry held by an Australian lottery player took home $40 million was in May 2014.