Record $200m Powerball jackpot won
Two entries have won Thursday’s $200m Powerball jackpot, the biggest lottery prize in Australian history.
Each winning entry will take home $100m. One of the winning entries was bought in Queensland, while the other entry was sold in NSW.
Twenty-two other entries took out division two, worth $177,092.75 each.
The numbers needed to win Thursday’s $200 Powerball 1446 are: 12 33 23 35 1 26 32. The Powerball is: 10
The first prize for next week’s Powerball will be $4m.
It had been expected thousands of entries per minute would be generated at lottery outlets and online as players rush to grab a ticket before the draw closed at 7.30pm.
Insane queues were seen on Thursday.
“It’s the highest it’s ever been,” Youssef Tannoury who manages a tobacconist in Cranebrook, in Sydney’s west, said. “Everyone wants to win $200m.”
Mr Tannoury’s store sold a winning ticket as part of a three-way jackpot win in 2022, in what was then the biggest jackpot of $160m for Powerball.
He said he hoped there would be a shared win again for Thursday’s prize.
“It makes more people happy, more than one winner,” he said as his store was full of excited customers.
“You see the smiles today but I’m not sure about tomorrow,”
The Lott anticipated thousands of entries per minute would be sold online as players rushed to grab a ticket before the draw closed.
The Lott website reportedly crashed in the last half-hour before the close of entries as punters made a last minute grab to win.
Last year, a man from Bankstown in Sydney scored a $100m jackpot, becoming the second-biggest Australian lottery winner of all time.
In total in 2023, there were 20 Powerball division one winning entries across Australia who pocketed more than $552.15m in prize money.
Of the 20 Powerball division one winning entries in 2023, eight were sold in NSW, seven in Victoria, two each in South Australia and Western Australia, and one in Queensland.
More to come
