One week after the record-breaking $150 million Powerball draw, an Ipswich grandmother has checked her ticket to discover she’s the third division one winner lottery officials had been searching for.
The overwhelmed Ipswich local held one of the three division one winning entries nationally in Powerball draw 1218 on Thursday 19 September 2019 and takes home a division one prize of $50 million.
A Brisbane man and a Sydney dad each held the other two division one winning entries, claiming their $50 million prizes last week. However, the identity of the third winner had remained a mystery until today.
The winning entry was not registered to a player card, which meant lottery officials had no way of reaching out to the winner to break the life- changing news and had to wait for her to check her ticket and claim her prize.
This morning she contacted Golden Casket, holding the $50 million winning entry, to confirm her unbelievable overnight discovery.
“Thank you,” she laughed with relief.
“I can’t believe it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to believe it until I called you but now I’m on the phone to you and I still don’t believe it!
“I checked my ticket about one million times last night on the app and then again on the website.
“I was shaking. I was completely overwhelmed and still am!”
The retiree revealed she had heard lottery officials had narrowed down the search for last week’s third Powerball division one winner to Ipswich, although she thought there was no way it could be her.
“I kept putting off checking my ticket because I was waiting to hear that someone else had claimed the prize,” she explained.
“But then when I hadn’t heard an update, I thought to myself ‘I’d better check that ticket’.
“I always buy a ticket into the big jackpot draws but just like everyone else, you never actually think it’s going to be you!”
When asked how she planned to enjoy her life-changing Powerball prize, the loving mother and grandmother explained she had plenty of items to tick off her bucket list.
“Well to begin with I’m going to make all my siblings, children and grandchildren millionaires!” she laughed.
“I’ve always dreamt if one day I won Powerball, I’d buy myself a Mustang! So I’ll definitely be doing that!
“And I will be buying myself a beautiful new home as well!”
The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased her division one winning entry at newsXpress Brassall, Shop 16, Brassall Shopping Village, Brassall.
Ipswich is no stranger to large jackpot wins, this is the second major prize to land in the region this year.
In June, an Ipswich mum took home a $40 million Oz Lotto prize in draw 1323.
newsXpress Brassall owner Devinder Bassie said he was thrilled to know his customer was now $50 million richer.
“We’ve spent the past week frantically checking Powerball tickets,” he explained.
“It’s created an incredible buzz in store as hundreds of customers scrambled to check their entries to see if they were the winner.
“We are absolutely delighted and relieved to know this woman has claimed her prize.
“Congratulations to her and we have no doubt she will really enjoy her incredible prize!”
In addition to the three $50 million division one winners, there were 4,648,104 winners across divisions two to nine in Powerball draw 1218 who collectively took home more than $81.87 million.
In the 12 months to 30 June 2019, 10 Powerball division one winners across Australia pocketed more than $398.5 million in prize money.
During this time, the biggest individual Powerball prize was $107,575,649.08, which was won by a Sydney healthcare worker on 17 January 2019. Her windfall set a new record for Australia’s biggest individual lottery winner.
The winning numbers in Powerball’s $150 million draw on Thursday 19 September were 26, 4, 17, 5, 18, 8 and 31. The all-important Powerball number was 9.
Across Australia, there were three division one winning entries in Powerball draw 1218 – two entries from Queensland and one entry from New South Wales.
The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 272 so far this calendar year.