200,000 Aussies Register For ‘Murican $1.5 Billion Lotto, Site Explodes

As a nation, our thirst for winning actual billions of dollars has never been higher.

The delicious combination of record US$1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) Powerball lotto in the States and Aussies getting a chance for the first time to have a punt on it has turned us all into lottery enthusiasts and avid consumers of lottery-related media, even though the chances of winning are about a squillion to one.

Such is the demand for an infinitesimal chance to win bulk $$$ that we’ve crashed the website that facilitates it.

“The site held up until yesterday evening, and then it just kind of ground to a halt,” Managing Director of Lottoland Australia Luke Brill told PEDESTRIAN.TV. “We’ve had two brilliant guys in Europe [trying to fix the site] who haven’t slept in 14 hours.”
That’s because an astounding 201,000 Australians have (so far) registered to the site, most of them in the last 24 hours.

“Before the Powerball, I think we had about five customers,” says Brill, quipping that they’d only signed up friends and family since having their licence approved on Christmas Eve last year in order to “make sure the site was running properly.”

“We were just getting our site ready to launch when this US Powerball happened. So two days ago, we put out a press release to say we were offering the US Powerball chance to Australia, just a little press release. It just got picked up by the media and turned into an absolute frenzy.

“The traffic has been absolutely phenomenal.”


The European site, which has about two million users, has also crashed. Whelp.

Unfortunately for all of us yet to have a punt, it’s looking unlikely that the site will be running smoothly again before the 2pm AEST draw.

But there’s still a chance – in compensation, Lottoland are offering everyone a free spot in a shared bet. Anyone who comments + likes this Facebook post will go in on a bet on one lot of tickets. And if it wins, the everybody wins.

Never say we don’t love ya .    

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can’t actually buy a ticket in the Powerball, but you can bet on a set of numbers through Lottoland, and they’ll pay out the equal amount. Read how it works HERE.

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