Woman mistakes $20m lottery win for $20,000 win

A NSW woman broke down in tears after realising her $20,000 lottery win was actually a $20m jackpot.

She checked her ticket on Friday morning and got the shock of her life when she realised it held the winning numbers.

“I looked at it and then ran to my family and said, ‘I’ve won $20,000!’,” the Gladstone resident told officials from The Lott.

“They looked at it and then looked at me and said, ‘No you haven’t. You’ve won $20 million!’”.

The woman said she would have been happy to have won a $20,000 prize, but she is now “in fairyland” over the life-changing win.

“I still can’t believe it,” she said.

“I keep thinking I’ll wake up and I’ll be back in reality.”

The Mid North Coast local broke down in tears when asked what she would do with the multi-million dollar prize, telling lottery officials she had been waiting on “one of (their) calls for years”.

She plans to use her lottery winnings to buy a house and travel around the world.

The woman bought her winning ticket at Gladstone Newsagency & General Store, whose owners were delighted to have paid out their first multimillion-dollar entry.

Owners Kevin and Robyn McNaught said they were “feeling upbeat” and “excited to know we have played a part in changing someone’s life”.

So far this financial year, there have been 324 winners of the division one Powerball.

The woman is the 324th person to win the division one Powerball draw since June last year.

Winners pocketed more than $552.15 million in prize money in 2023, including one dad who won $100m and became the second-biggest lottery winner in Australian history.