A group of about 50 gym buddies in Western Australia have shared an $80 million Powerball jackpot – with their ticket the lone winner of the monster pool.

Each of the women, who work out together at a gym in Perth’s north, will get about $1.5 million.

According to The Lott, their ticket was the only division one winning entry from Thursday night’s Powerball draw.

One of the winners told 6PR radio in Perth that the women each put in $5 for their ticket.

“Our leading light lady that runs the gym said ‘I think we should put in for Powerball, come on! Five dollars each’ and I scraped a couple of coins together out of my parking ticket money … I found $2 on the floor,” Lorna (who did not give a surname) said.

That was gym-owner Sue (last name withheld), who was also in the syndicate.

She told Triple M Breakfast on Friday morning the group was out for their annual Christmas meal when the prize was drawn. They discovered the huge win only when one husband called to let them know.

“I got the ticket out and we checked the numbers and you should have seen the restaurant, it went into absolute chaos,” she said.

“That’s where we found out.”

Lorna missed the Christmas do because she had another function.

“I came home late, popped into bed, checked my phone and I had all these missed calls,” she said.

“I rang them back, and I said ‘I hope you’re ringing to tell me we’ve won Powerball’ and she said ‘yeah, we have!”

Lorna was told to “get out of bed, get dressed, come down”.

“When I got to the restaurant there were all these crazy women who had taken over the restaurant and car park,” she said.

The draw is the largest lottery win for a Western Australian in history, topping the previous record of $50 million in 2015. It is also the third-equal biggest individual lottery winner in Australia, and the equal biggest prize won from any Australian lottery game this year.

The group ranges in age from 30 to 84.

Sue said she had spent a very enjoyable Friday morning ringing to tell those who didn’t already know about their win. Members were “beside themselves” at their “life-changing” prize, she said.

“For me, I own this gym, and I work my bum off and it’s been really tough with COVID and all the rest … but to win this and to share it with 55 of the most amazing women that I work with every day, it’s the greatest thing ever and I feel so blessed that I’ve been able to share it with them,” she told the radio network.

Sue’s husband was recently made redundant, and the couple had been worried about their financial future.

“This has taken that all away so we don’t have to worry anymore – life’s good,” she said, adding that she will continue to work at the gym.

The Lott spokesperson Matt Hart also had some advice for anyone who had a ticket in Thursday night’s draw and was yet to check it.

“You may not have been the one that won division one tonight, but there was a total of 2.5 million prizes worth more than $45.14 million won in divisions two to nine in tonight’s draw,” he said.

“Among those winners were 14 division two winners, who each take home a prize worth $89,207.70.”

An estimated one in four Australians had a ticket in Thursday’s monster draw.