A couple has unwrapped a valuable early Christmas present by sharing a A$100 million lottery win in Australia.
New South Wales Lotteries (The Lott) said a couple from Rockhampton in Queensland had come forward to claim their $50 million prize, but a Melbourne entrant may not have yet learnt about their new-found wealth from the Powerball draw on Thursday.
The winning grandmother was quoted by Lott as saying they had been playing the game since it started in 1996 and used the same numbers but this time instead used a QuickPick where a computer automatically selected random numbers.
“You’re joking,” the unnamed woman said in media release from The Lott.
“I expected you to ask if we have solar panels, not to tell us we’ve just won $50 million.
“We’ve been pretty happy in life, but this is the icing on the cake.”
They planned to share their new fortune with family, who had yet to be informed of the win.
The Melbourne winner from the city of Darebin held an unregistered ticket, which meant The Lott officials had to wait for them to check their ticket and come forward to claim their $50 million prize.
There have been larger lottery wins in Australia, but the prize is not taxable because it is considered to be a windfall gain and not assessable income.
The world’s largest lottery win was US$2.04 billion in the U.S. Powerball on 7 November 2022.
