After a month filled with COVID illness, a hospital visit for a lung infection, trouble with an old home in Melbourne including a major water leak, and a car accident, an 11-year-old convinced his mother to buy a Powerball ticket for Australia’s $60 million ja
When the day felt too heavy to carry, it wasn’t a headline that lifted the air—it was an 11-year-old asking for a single Lotto ticket.
Last month, the family had a bad run of luck in ways that went far beyond ordinary stress. The mother ended up quite ill with COVID. Her mum had to go to the hospital with a lung infection. Their old home in Melbourne had its own crisis, including a major water leak. And then, as an added bonus, a family member accidentally drove into the back of her car.
In that mood—feeling annoyed with life—her 11-year-old son asked if they could buy a Lotto ticket for Australia’s $60 million AUD Powerball. She’s not much of a gambler, but she agreed to talk to the clerk. They went into the store.
The woman at the counter pressed a button and produced an eight-game dummy ticket to explain how it worked. As the mother looked down at the ticket, she realized many of the numbers looked familiar. She told the woman she would go ahead and buy the ticket, but wanted that specific one. She asked her son to check it—and it had all their family numbers on it.
On the way home in the car, she had him scan for matches. First came numbers corresponding to her youngest daughter’s age and the numbers in her birth date. “Tick, tick, tick.” Then the search widened: the ages and birth dates of her son and her other sister. The same pattern appeared for her husband’s and her own birth date and month—she noted they were “too old” for their years to be in the display.
They kept going with her side of the family. “Let’s try Nana’s and Pop’s,” she said. Their days and months were there too. So were her parents-in-law’s. She admits she’s always been a little “woo-woo” and into signs, and as the confirmations stacked up, she began to feel excited.
That excitement spilled into the draw night. The family gathered around the television with bated breath to watch the Powerball Lotto draw unfold.
The first number drawn was 27. “Bingo.” Next was 5. “Yep, it was one of ours.” The third number was her youngest daughter’s age.
By then, she was on the edge of her seat, and her son tried to calm her down. He reminded her that to win the jackpot. you needed to match all seven winning numbers plus the Powerball number on a single game panel. He’d gotten the explanation from “Pop” about how it worked. She told him to pipe down—not her finest moment as a parent—because she wanted quiet long enough to hear the magic numbers.
Three of the next four numbers weren’t theirs, and then, with the final Powerball number, it was all over. The jackpot wasn’t theirs. But she says it still felt like a turning point in their luck.
After the draw, they checked their numbers online and found the result: two Division 9 wins. Not the big one, but “at least it was something.”
Their 7-year-old daughter asked, “Mum, did we win?” The mother laughed and answered, “Yes… $28.40, to be precise.” Her daughter sobbed afterward and said she wanted them to win the $60 million. The mother explained that maybe there was another family who needed the money more than them. She also made a mental note never to involve the kids in lottery hype again.
In the end, it wasn’t a millionaire moment. It was a small payoff that still landed hard: after spending the family’s $28.40 win on ice creams for everyone, her daughter smiled “from ear to ear.”
The mother doesn’t expect this to become a habit. “I probably won’t bother with a Lotto ticket again,” she said, describing it as a fun one-off experience. But since that draw. she says the family has received two other pieces of positive news about their house in Melbourne—and she believes Lady Luck might be on their side once more.
Editor’s note: $60m AUD is roughly $41,470,000 USD, and $28.40 AUD is roughly $19.64 USD.
Powerball Lotto Australia Melbourne home COVID Division 9 win family lottery water leak car accident