There are now 55 more female millionaires in Australia after the owner and members of a Western Australian gym together won the massive $80 million Powerball jackpot on Thursday night.
The group learned their numbers had come up while at a Christmas party in a restaurant. Sharing the news on Friday morning with Triple M Breakfast, the gym owner ‘Sue’ revealed that all the winners had paid just $5 for a ticket in a syndicate but would now be taking home $1.45 million each.
As news media swarmed the gym the next morning, some cameras caught the moment morning gymgoers, who had not been at the party, received the news that they had become millionaires overnight.
The youngest recipient is 18, the eldest is in her eighties. Women spoke of having experienced hard years and finally being able to afford a house.
One winner told Nine News: “I joined this gym two months ago and I put $5 in and now I have a shared in $80 million, WOHOOOO!”
Another winner said: “A lot of us are just battlers, not anymore.”
“A group of us ladies from my gym were out at our Christmas dinner and one of the husbands rang and said, ‘hey, I think you ladies won the lotto’,” Sue told Triple M.
“We went ‘nah, don’t think so’. So we got the ticket out and checked the numbers and you should have seen the restaurant, it went into absolute chaos.”
She added that since learning the news she’s had the “greatest morning” ringing people to tell them.
“We’re ranging from our 30s and the oldest would be 84. I’ve had the greatest morning ringing people to tell them they’ve won one-and-a-half million dollars,” Sue said, adding she still needed to share the news with about 10 more ladies.
Sue said it was “the greatest thing ever” to share the win with the “most amazing women I work with every day” after the trials of the last two years, and feeling the pressures of running a small business through the pandemic.
“I feel so blessed I’ve been able to share it with them,” she said. “It’s life-changing for all of us.”
“I said yesterday, ‘you know what ladies? Someone’s gonna win it tonight, so why not us?”
One in four Australians are estimated to have purchased a Powerball ticket for Thursday night’s jackpot.