Lotterywest reveals number of tickets expected to be sold for Thursday’s $100m Powerball draw

West Aussies will be collectively crossing their fingers on Thursday night when the massive $100m Lotto Powerball jackpot is drawn.

If a single winner takes home the whole Division One prize it would become the largest individual haul the State has seen, and second-biggest nationally.

Lotterywest CEO Colin Smith revealed how many tickets he expected would sell in the final hours before the draw.

“We are expecting the busiest time for ticket sales to be between 4pm and 5pm this afternoon with close to a thousand tickets to be sold each minute,” he said.

“It’s not every week we see our jackpotting games reach these heights, this being just the ninth time Powerball has offered a $100 million prize in the game’s 28-year history.”

As has been a trend, Aussie interest in Lotto builds when consecutive jackpots go unclaimed and the figure snowballs.

“For the past six weeks, no ticket across the country has claimed a Division One Powerball prize, which has seen the jackpot roll into a $100 million prize,” Mr Smith said.

Last Thursday’s $60m draw escaped a Division One winner, with Lotterywest this week expecting “up to half of Australian adults to have an entry”, according to spokesperson James Mooney.

In 2021, a group of 55 women from a Beldon gym in the northern suburbs shared a slice of the entire $80m Powerball Division One jackpot — WA’s largest Lotto win.

“Since COVID-19 the gym has been really struggling, and a lot of the ladies at the gym are real Aussie battlers and come here as an outlet,” one of the winners said.

“We’re a real community and this is going to be life-changing for every single one of us.

“The future is looking so bright.”

Thursday’s $100m Powerball jackpot will be drawn at 6pm WST.