Aussies claim $20 million Lotto prize and reveal their incredible plans for the money

A Sunbury couple is breathing a collective sigh of relief because their eyes aren’t deceiving them and that they are actually $20 million richer from last night’s Powerball drawing.

The Melburnians had the only national winning entry from Division 1 in Powerball draw 1436, drawn on Thursday 23 November 2023, taking home a total prize of $20,000,012.10.

The winning entry from Division 1 was not registered, meaning The Lott officials were unable to contact the winners and had to wait for them to check their ticket and come forward.

The newly made multi-millionaires shared the exact moment they discovered their lives had changed forever, as an official from The Lott confirmed their new fortune this morning.

‘Wow, oh wow!’ the winning woman exclaimed.

‘That’s pretty incredible!

‘We were so worried it wasn’t real. I think we checked the win about 10 times.

“We had something important to do this morning, so we hadn’t had a chance to check our Powerball ticket.

“When we got home we decided to check the ticket and when the $20 million winnings showed up we honestly thought it was a scam.

‘We manually entered our ticket number into The Lott’s website and the same prize amount appeared. I checked the ticket again and then checked the winning numbers again.

“But now that you’ve reaffirmed the victory, wow! We cannot ignore this.

“We buy tickets for the Powerball drawings irregularly… every now and then.

“It’s funny because on another line of the ticket we had won a division nine prize of $12.10. That’s usually all we win!

‘We will use the rest of today to process the victory. It takes hours to process.”

With the prospect of $20 million on the way, the dynamic duo had only one thing in mind with their bountiful reward.

“To be honest, we had to make sure it was real first, so we didn’t really think about it. But my husband had different thoughts,” she revealed.

‘We will most likely help our family and friends and complete some other chores.

‘We keep the news about the victory to ourselves.

‘Thank you so much.’

Their winning entry was purchased from Nextra Sunbury, 14 Brook Street, Sunbury.

Nextra Sunbury manager Melissa Hubbard said she is thrilled to hear that the mystery winners have come forward to claim their multi-million dollar prize.

“We were so excited to hear that we had sold a winning Division 1 entry in the recent $20 million Powerball drawing, and we couldn’t be happier for our winners,” she said.

‘Our customers have been thrilled to hear that their local news agency has helped change the lives of a local and we’ve even had one customer tell us this is the reason she buys her tickets from us!

‘This is our 32nd Division 1 winning entry since we first opened and we can’t wait to surprise more customers with winning tickets and a winning smile.

“We would like to congratulate the Sunbury couple on their life-changing victory. We are so happy that they have the opportunity to make all their dreams come true.”

The winning numbers in Powerball drawing 1436 on Thursday, November 23, 2023 were 35, 31, 32, 7, 23, 33 and 4. The all-important Powerball number was 5.

Across Australia there was one winning entry from Division 1 in Powerball draw 1436 – one in Victoria.

The number of Lott’s Division 1 winners now stands at 372 in 2023, including 126 won by Tatts customers.

In FY23, 21 winning Powerball Division 1 entries across Australia took home more than $647.26 million in prize money.

During this time, Powerball offered a $160 million jackpot – the largest prize ever offered by an Australian lottery game – which was won by three winning entries from the First Division.

Of the 21 Powerball divisions, one winning entry landed in FY23, 11 landed in New South Wales, three in Victoria and South Australia, and two in Queensland and Western Australia.