A group of Australian miners won a $40 million lottery and their manager was ‘ecstatic’ for them but also worried he’d lose his workers

The manager of a group of 20 Kalgoorie-Boulder miners thought they were ‘joking’ when they told him they’d won a $36 million lottery.

In October 2022, the $110 million (AU $75 million) Powerball jackpot lottery was won by three winners – one winner made up of a group of 20 miners based in Gold Fields in Australia.

ABC News reported that the group of 20 night-shift workers from WA mining got to take home a total of $36.44 million (AU $53 million) overall.

Split between them, that equates to around $1.822 million (AU $2.6 million) each.

And one of the first things they did when they found out they’d struck gold was call up their manager – who, unfortunately, wasn’t part of their group who entered into the lottery.

Unlucky.

When the group called up their manager, Chris Wood, to tell him the good news, Woods initially ‘did not believe them’.

He told ABC that he’d told the group of employees: “It’s impossible, I don’t believe you, you are joking.”

However, in fear of ‘los[ing] them’ as a result of them potentially no longer needing their jobs, he added while he was ‘ecstatic’ and ‘very happy for each of them’, he did tell them he would ‘run after them and steal their ticket if they [didn’t] come back’ to work.

“They’re great workers,” he added. “It is my best shift. They are all from here.”

While it’s not been reported whether or not the employees did return to work or decided to sack it all off completely given their newfound riches, someone from another group of workers called the Goldfields spoke out about whether or not they’d return to work after scoring a similarly big win.

Kylie Owen was one of the 250 people in the group who won a mega $43 million and says it felt ‘amazing’ and ‘electric’.

However, while the win ‘changed the entire town’ by putting ‘a buzz through’ it, it didn’t result in a big shift within workforces.

The business owner resolved to ‘not change’ what she was doing and ‘still go to work every day’ despite coming into money.

Indeed, a man who won $50 million in the Lotto Max jackpot got up at 4:30am the following week to go back to work despite the big win, continuing his job as a driver and head of shipping at a catering company as to not let his colleagues down.

So maybe the manager had nothing to worry about in the end eh?