5 August 2019

A dream financial year for Lotterywest and the WA community

Lotterywest is celebrating a dream run after record sales turned into a record return to the community last financial year.

Our jackpotting games went over $80 million five times, contributing to total sales of $985.3 million, a 15 per cent increase on last year.

More than three-quarters of that ($736.3 million) went straight back to the community in the form of prizes and grants.

  • $454.6 million (50 per cent) went back to nearly 17.5 million prize winners including
    • 58 Division One winners
    • 44 Scratch’n’Win Top Prize winners
  • $281.7 million to the community including
    • $143.7 million to WA’s hospitals and public health services
    • $18 million to sport
    • $18 million to the arts
    • $102 million to 613 community and local government organisations

If there is a theme to the year, it is ‘sharing’. The biggest WA win of the year was $10 million on OZ Lotto which was shared by a syndicate of 22 friends who have been playing Lotterywest games together for four years. “We are like family now,” one of the winners said.

Then two couples in February and a young man in May each won $4.8 million on Set for Life. They won’t be spending it all at once as the prize is paid out at $20,000 a month over 20 years. One man in his 20s joked that he would spend his first $20,000 on a trip to Legoland with family. This win was part of an amazing weekend for WA with a lucky mum taking a $3.3 million share in Saturday Lotto’s Superdraw.

We also saw the launch of Million-Yeah on July 27, 2019, a special event that saw Saturday Lotto create eight new millionaires, including one Western Australian.

It was a great year for giving too, with $6.5 million going to the Royal Flying Doctor Service for two new purpose-built jets, $4.6 million to RSLWA for a veterans’ hub in the new ANZAC House and lots of mid to small grants for the organisations that are all doing their bit to build a better WA together.

For more on our grant recipients check out the Dream State story hub, and click here for the story of where our money goes.