Ticket mania has taken over Brisbane, and Australia, as millions of us take a punt at tonight’s giant Oz Lotto jackpot.

Up for grabs a $70 million jackpot, the second biggest in Lotto history.

Simone Peterson reports.

TRANSCRIPT

Around half of Australian adults are expected to purchase a ticket in tonight’s Oz Lotto draw.

Quick picks are the most popular entry, generating more than 60 per cent of all ticket sales.

All week, newsagencies havbe been in a spin selling three to four times more lotto tickets than usual.

Ross Petersen, Rankins News Proprietor: “You’ve got to have a ticket, well you’ve got to be in it to win it, that’s all I can say. We know people that have bought one single game, cost them $1.10 and they’ve won $10m. So anything is possible.”

Typically, an Oz lotto prize is won by between one and three people. If one person wins the entire division prize pool on offer, they will instantly become the biggest lottery winner in Australia.

Zoe Knoble, Golden Casket Employee: “Unlike American lotteries and other international lottery organisations, none of our prizes are taxed. No Australian prizes are ever taxed. So if you win $70 million that’s all yours to keep.”

But you’d have to be very lucky the odds are astronomical.

Professor Peter Adams, Associate Dean Academic Faculty of Science: “There’s nothing at all you can do to make it more likely you’ll win. Every game, no matter how you pick the numbers is one chance in 45 million.”

Many punters already have plans for what they’ll do if they win.

Vox Pop 1: “I’d take my time and think about it, but certainly houses and cars and holidays, the usual things.”

Vox Pop 2: “That’s crazy! $70 million! You’d be set, you wouldn’t need to do anything else.”

If no one wins the big one tonight, next week, the prize jackpots to more than $100 million.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Simone Peterson, QUT News.