A LUCKY lottery winner who scooped a record £78million jackpot said he wants to keep working despite winning a lifetime fortune.
The Aussie from Adelaide knows that he might sound crazy, but admitted he can’t wrap his head around the astronomical prize.
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He claimed the $150million Powerball division one prize (£78million), becoming Australia’s biggest lottery winner.
According to statisticians, the chances of being struck by lightning are greater than the chances of winning the big prize, but millions were willing to take the risk.
The single division one winning ticket was purchased from a petrol station in Salisbury, located in northern Adelaide.
The lucky man, who had two tickets in the draw, realised he became a millionaire after checking them last Thursday night.
But unlike many lotto winners, the Aussie said he won’t stop working after getting his prize, 9News reports.
Saying he’d never “screamed so loud or jumped so high,” the man added: “I’m at work today.
“I’ll buy a house, want to travel the world and I’ve got a family and friends I want to help, but for now I can’t wrap my head around how big this prize is.
“This is life-changing. I can’t stop smiling and pinching myself.”
The Lott previously said that a single person purchased the ticket but did not register it to a player card or online account, leaving officials with little choice except to wait for them to come forward.
The £78million prize is matched for the third largest prize ever awarded by the lottery game, however the most lucrative drawings were won by several winners or syndicates.
Officials had said that up to half of all Australian adults were expected to purchase a ticket as the division one prize increased following six consecutive draws with no winners.
The winning numbers were 18, 29, 34, 8, 4, 28 and 6 with a Powerball of 11.
There have only ever been five drawings that have offered a jackpot of at least $150 million, said Lott spokesperson Matt Hart.
Before the draw, he said: “If just one person takes home this $150 million prize on Thursday night, they’ll make history by becoming the nation’s biggest-ever individual lottery winner.
“The last time Powerball offered a $150 million prize was in January this year when the peak of sales was at 6.15pm on the day of the draw when 7455 tickets were sold in a single minute.”
It comes after a mum who landed a whopping £1million jackpot says she still can’t believe she scooped the win and went back to work.
Toni Henderson, 32, said that she initially thought she’d won only a tiny fraction of the cash after merely scanning her eyes over her ticket.
But even when she saw the seven-figure sum on her screen – and reality sunk in – the mum-of-one went back to work.
The County Durham woman said: “There are no words to express how you feel. I had this excited butterfly feeling having the win officially confirmed and then seeing all of the zeros in my bank account.
“You sit and think about what you’d do all the time if you won, but then, when it happens, you don’t know what to do.”
Read more on the Scottish Sun
The mum plans to keep working at her payments assistant job as she wants her son to understand the importance of making your own money.
The world’s biggest lottery wins
On August 8, 2023, Mega Millions brought the second greatest lotto amount ever won by a single person, as well as the second largest jackpot in history, when a ticket purchased in Florida won the $1.602 billion jackpot.
On November 7, 2022, a single-ticket holder from California won a staggering jackpot of $2.04 billion with Powerball, making it the largest lottery win by one person in history, LottoLand UK reports.
Powerball now holds the world record for the largest jackpot and single win.
Meanwhile, the largest lottery prize ever won in Britain belongs to an unnamed winner who scooped £195.7 million.
Powerball holds the record for the greatest jackpot ever awarded, as well as the second largest jackpot payout, with Mega Millions coming in third.
The Powerball jackpot is worth $2.04 billion (£1.79 billion), and while this is a staggering amount, it is still significantly less than the amount paid out in prizes by the Spanish Christmas Lottery, also known as “El Gordo,” which now has a new prize pool of €2.5 billion.
The difference is that El Gordo distributes the reward fund considerably more equally, thus no one will win a single jackpot payout comparable to that of Powerball.
