By Josefine Ganko and Christine Lee
In the days before June 12, one very lucky punter entered the Bondi Junction Newsagency & Internet Cafe and bought a ticket for the upcoming Powerball.
When Powerball 1517 was drawn, that ticket was the only division one winner, entitling its holder to the entire top prize pool of $100 million. And yet, more than a month later and after extensive public appeals, no one has come forward to claim the prize.
Bondi Junction Newsagency & Internet Cafe sold the Powerball ticket to the mystery $100 million winner.Credit: Steven Siewert
Grace Martino works at the newsagency part-time and has seen plenty of winners in her four decades of selling lottery tickets. She said the buzz around the mysterious Powerball jackpot has been particularly intense.
“So many customers have been asking about the ticket to get some idea of who won,” Martino said, explaining that the store doesn’t know the time or date of the sale, only that it was sold at their shop.
She cautions that it’s not uncommon for tickets to go missing.
“People say, ‘I would never lose my ticket’, but people do end up losing it … and more [frequently] than you think.”
The $100 million prize is enough to buy a private jet, a Caribbean island or to stay a little under two years living in the most expensive hotel room in the world (The $155,000 per night Royal Mansion at Atlantis the Royal, Dubai).
Grace Martino says it’s not uncommon for tickets to get lost.Credit: Steven Siewert
It’ll even allow you to crack the Sydney housing market, but it still won’t be enough to nab you one of the most expensive properties in town.
How rare is a $100m jackpot?
The mystery winner shares the title of Australia’s third-biggest lottery winner. An Adelaide man holds the record for his $150 million Powerball jackpot in 2024, while a Sydney nurse nabbed the second-highest haul with $107 million in 2019.
The odds of these Powerball jackpot wins are about one in 134 million, The Lott – a corporation owned by the state government – estimates. You are far more likely to be killed in any number of unlikely ways, including a shark attack, plane crash or fireworks accident (with odds of around one in 8 million, 11 million and 340,000 respectively).
As University of Sydney mathematician Dr Christopher Lustri explains, winning the lottery is as likely as selecting the right number between 1 and 134 million.
“No one would buy a lottery ticket if you just wrote down one number, and it had 134 million balls and they drew one out, because you would say ‘I’m not going to get that’, even though it would be exactly the same odds as matching seven balls,” he explains.
Does a lotto ticket expire?
In NSW and the ACT, winners have six years from the date of the draw to claim their prizes. When that period expires, the money can no longer be claimed. The period is a little longer in Queensland at seven years.
The chances of winning Powerball are about one in 134 million.
In Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania there is no limit on when winners can claim their prize, but they will have to pay an administrative fee after 12 months.
In the last financial year, the average wait for a winner to claim their prize was 10 days.
What happens to the money if the winning ticket is never claimed?
There’s no precedent for an unclaimed lotto prize of this size. The Lott’s investigation team gathers evidence of who the winner could be, so it could be verified if they came forward, but that information cannot be released without the winners consent.
The time and date the ticket was purchased are also not disclosed, as they represent key pieces of information that only the rightful ticket owner would know and could provide in the case of a Lost or Damaged ticket claim.
In a statement, a Lott spokesperson said there are “established guidelines for the responsible management of unclaimed prize money, which include initiatives such as community donations, bonus draws, and player promotions”.
“That said, our hope is that the full amount is claimed and enjoyed by its rightful owner well before then.”
What if your ticket is lost or damaged?
A registered ticket holder can claim their winnings even without the physical ticket. If you haven’t registered, as is the case with the recent jackpot winner, it’s a bit more complicated.
Someone who believes they had a ticket with the winning numbers but doesn’t have the physical ticket can submit a statutory declaration that includes the date, time and place of purchase.
Where a ticket can’t be produced, and an entry hadn’t been registered, the Lott is not obligated to pay out the winnings, and will only do so at its discretion if satisfied there is “clear and irrefutable” evidence the claimant did purchase the winning ticket.
What about finders keepers?
If an unregistered winning lotto ticket is found, there is hypothetically nothing stopping the finder from claiming the winnings, as the value is held in the ticket itself.
Punters are urged to treat lottery tickets like cash.Credit: Steven Siewert
“Ultimately, lottery tickets should be treated with the same care as cash,” a Lott spokesperson said, adding that the best way to avoid such a situation is to register your ticket.
What if a tourist wins?
Given the ticket was purchased in Bondi, one of the many tourists who pass through the area may have bought the ticket. If so, they are just as entitled to claim the prize as any Australian, although their winnings may be subject to different taxation rules depending on where they are from. If they have left the country, they will also have to return to claim the ticket in person, given that it was not registered.
What’s the process when claiming a winning ticket?
Smaller wins of up to $1000 can be paid out in store in NSW, but as soon as winnings exceed a thousand dollars, the process is different.
Bigger winners who scan their tickets in-store will be advised that they have a winning ticket, but not how much they have won. They are then directed to phone The Lott’s contact centre, where the customer service team will confirm the winnings and advise on the next steps.
Registered participants or online ticket buyers don’t have to do anything. They’ll be contacted directly the next business day if they win a Division One prize, and immediately after the draw if they win more than $40 million.
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