Australians hoping to win Thursday night’s $100 million Powerball jackpot have been told there is only one way to improve their chances: buy more tickets.
Professor John Croucher, a mathematics expert at Macquarie University Business School, said there was no winning system capable of overcoming odds of one in 134.5 million.
“Buy more tickets. There’s nothing else you can do to increase your chances,” he said. “There’s no other strategy, but if there was, I’d be using it.”
The jackpot has reached $100 million after last week’s top prize went unclaimed. A sole winner would collect Australia’s equal third-largest lottery prize on record.
Less popular numbers could reduce the chance of sharing
While number selection cannot make a win more likely, Professor Croucher said players could choose less obvious combinations to reduce the risk of splitting the prize with other winners.
Patterns such as 1, 2, 3, 4 or 1, 11, 21, 31 are more likely to be selected by other players. If one of those combinations were drawn, the jackpot could therefore be shared.
He warned that so-called lucky, overdue or frequently drawn numbers offered no mathematical advantage. Every number has the same chance of being selected in each draw, regardless of previous results.
“People talk about numbers that haven’t been drawn out as much and call these numbers overdue, meaning they are more likely to be drawn out, but that’s not true,” he said.
“In the opposite end, people will say that numbers that have come up more often than they should, won’t happen again, but that’s also not true.
“The machine has no memory, so like a poker machine, it has no memory of what happened before and everything starts afresh.”
Since the current Powerball format was introduced in 2018, nine has been drawn 103 times, making it the most frequently selected number. It is followed by 17, which has appeared 102 times, while seven and 11 have each been drawn 101 times.
“Powerball themselves on their website actually say which numbers have been drawn out the most and the least, but that’s no guarantee they’ve got any more or any less chance of being drawn out again,” Professor Croucher said.
Past winners and an unclaimed $100 million ticket
The prospect of a life-changing win has previously become reality for an Adelaide man, who scooped Australia’s biggest individual lottery prize in May 2024 when he claimed the entire $150 million Powerball jackpot.
He bought the ticket while stopping to fill his car and discovered the result after scanning it alongside another ticket. Despite the win, he went to work the following day.
“I’ve never screamed so loud or jumped so high!” he said. “I actually had two tickets into last night’s draw. I looked at the clock last night and saw it was getting late and thought the draw should have been done by then.
“So, I checked the first one and it came up with nothing, then I scanned the second one and it said $150 million.”
He said he planned to buy a house, travel and help family and friends, adding: “I know it may sound crazy but I’m going to continue working. I’m at work today.”
Another winner, however, has yet to come forward for a $100 million Powerball prize bought at Bondi Junction Newsagency in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in June 2025.
Cashier Grace Martino said the winner could have been a passer-by, backpacker or tourist rather than one of the shop’s regular customers.
The Lott said the ticket had not been registered, leaving officials unable to contact the winner directly.
