Powerball $50m jackpot: Wyndham Vale dad wins while watching AFL on couch, chose his lucky number

An Aussie dad’s phone call has been revealed after he won a life-changing $50 million while watching the footy with his son.

Headshot of Kimberley Braddish
Kimberley Braddish
The Nightly
Australia's 2025 lottery hotspots have been revealed, with suburbs from Bundaberg to Broad Beach claiming the most Division I winning entries from this year's $1.5 billion in jackpots. Victoria recorded the highest number of Division I wins with 142

A Melbourne man has scored a life-changing $50 million Powerball jackpot while sitting on the couch watching the footy with his son.

The Wyndham Vale father held the only division one winning entry in draw 1556 on Thursday night, taking home the entire prize.

The man initially nearly missed the news of his win after ignoring an email alert about the result.

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“Is it true?” he gasped when he finally contacted lottery officials.

“I actually saw your first email and I didn’t even open it. I assumed it was junk and deleted it.

“But then I received another email, and I thought, ‘maybe I’ll check the app’.

“Unbelievable! Fifty million dollars! That’s insane!”

The stunned winner said he was still processing the result while sitting at home watching AFL.

“I’m in shock! I’m just sitting here watching the footy with my son. When my wife gets home, have I got news for her!” he said.

“I think she won’t believe me, but when I show her the ticket, she’ll get the shakes and start crying.”

The winning ticket was a modest four-game entry costing $6.30, which he purchased through the lottery’s mobile app.

“I only ever play the smallest entry. You don’t need a big entry to win,” he said.

He usually picks family birthdays for his numbers but decided to mix things up for the draw.

“I normally use our birthday numbers for my tickets, but I had a small win the other day and I thought I’d select some random numbers for tonight’s draw.

“I decided to choose number 14 for the Powerball number as it’s my favourite football number.”

Despite the huge windfall, the father said he plans to stay grounded and focus on helping his family.

“We’re not going to buy anything out of this world. We’ll continue to be humble and buy a house in our suburb,” he said.

“I can’t wait to also go on realestate.com and browse for houses to buy. I never thought we’d be able to buy our very own home after renting for such a long time.

“We’ll also look to buy each of our children a house of their own. We’ll all be mortgage free!”

The winning numbers in Thursday’s draw were 5, 6, 18, 9, 14, 4 and 13, with the Powerball number 14.

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