If you're considering buying a lottery ticket, you'd better make sure it's from either Gladesville or Cabramatta, which are now officially Sydney's luckiest suburbs when it comes to winning big.
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With tonight's Powerball jackpot at a whopping $50 million, thousands of hopeful Sydneysiders have flocked to newsagencies to snap up a ticket.
Avid lottery ticket buyers will tell you there are patterns, and there are plenty of them: don't pick birthdays nor consecutive numbers and, at all costs, don't pick one to six in order.
NSW Lotteries has released statistics that show the luckiest suburbs across all lotto games in NSW and the ACT, as well as other tips for amateurs hoping to ring their bosses tomorrow morning to say they wouldn't be coming in to work.
Incredibly, Gladesville, with a population of 10,000, has had three division one prize winners in the first half of the year.
Those three lucky individuals took home combined winnings of $3,112,887.88.
From there, travel down the M4 and M7 and you will find Sydney's most consistent suburb in Campbelltown.
 
 
Like Gladesville, Campbelltown has also managed to sell three winning tickets, but statistics suggest it is the most consistent suburb, with each of the three winners taking home $1 million.
Winston Hills shares the distinction of having two division one winners, but it trumps every other suburb for the biggest win.
The top Winston Hills winner pocketed a staggering $30 million prize in March. He and a $25 million beneficiary from Cabramatta have far and away the greatest returns of anyone from Sydney.
Other hot suburbs include Nowra, Shoal Bay, Glendale and Jerilderie, that all have a resident who has taken home at least $5 million.
NSW Lotteries spokeswoman Elissa Lewis said people were as keen as ever to get their hands on a one-way ticket to early retirement.
"Imagine how your life could be enhanced by winning $50 million in Powerball this Thursday," Ms Lewis said
"Instead of taking the train into the city for work, you could be relaxing in a steam engine travelling through the Swiss Alps."
Most frequently drawn numbers
The most frequent numbers in Powerball's current game format, where six numbers are drawn from a barrel of 40 balls, are: 26, 29, 4, 32 and 34.
The most frequently drawn number from one to 20 is 15.
No Powerball players have picked all the six winning numbers in the past six weeks.
Records
The biggest division one prize payout in history across all games in Australia was for a staggering $111.9 million in November 2011. The prize money was shared evenly between four winners from Victoria (two), Queensland and New South Wales, which meant the quartet pocketed $27.9 million each. One of these winners was part of an 80-person syndicate.
As for the largest individual payday, that title goes to an Oz Lotto player from Queensland, who won $70 million last December.
Other notable individual pay packets include $58.7 million, $53.2 million, and two $50 million wins.
Rules
To win Powerball, a person must pick all the correct number drawn from one to 40. They must also pick the correct "Powerball" drawn from another set of number from one to 20.
