Seventeen workers at an oil and gas company in central Alberta are winners of the biggest jackpot in Canadian history, and will share $54,294,712.

That works out to $3,193,806.58 per winner.

The winners work at Viking Holdings in Sedgewick, Alta., just outside Camrose. Sedgewick has a population of about 900 and is about an hour's drive southeast of Edmonton.

One worker at the company says the prizewinners include bosses, contractors, secretaries and other employees.

Darrell Thompson, who bought the ticket, told his co-workers on Thursday morning after a safety meeting that he had the winning numbers. One of the workers told him, "You better not be kidding!"

"I'm not a regular ticket buyer. It was the first time I ever filled out a form and I was looking at the other guys to see how hard I had to colour it in," said another member of the winning group, Debbie Leslie.

A spokesman for the Western Canada Lottery Corporation says it has received a couple of calls about the winning ticket, but nothing is official until "we get the ticket and verify it."

Before Wednesday's draw the lineups were long in every part of the country. In the four days leading up to the draw Canadians spent an $90 million on 6/49 tickets.

The chances of winning were estimated at 1 in 14 million.

About 29 per cent of the money goes to provincial governments. A further 18 per cent is split between operating costs, payments to sellers and the federal government.

"I'm not going to go crazy, I'm not going to quit work," said winner Perry Mayne.

Thompson says he too will probably continue to work, but at a different job. "I'm going to buy my wife a new house, my daughter a new car, then go from there."

The previous lottery record was $37.8 million, offered in a Super 7 draw in 2002.