Ms Bartlett said she thought she had the same chance as anyone else to win, and was just lucky.

She said she had gone to the mining registrar's office at 9am that morning, along with many others, to endure a four-hour wait before the ballot was conducted.

Ms Bartlett said she had already been mining in the Grawin area previously, and this would be the first lease she's taking up in the Coocooran area.

"It's quite a big thing, I'm very shocked, it is definitely an advance in my opal mining career."

Ms Bartlett said she like many others had entered the ballot in a group because the chances of getting to prospect the block were better.

"I understand there is quite a bit of potential out there (Coocooran)," she said.

Meanwhile, mining registrar Jeff Inman said the Department of Mineral Resources had recorded 635 people who had taken part in the ballot.

"We expected quite a lot, because it (OPB 194) has been an area that I think people have been waiting a while for us to open up."

He said he knew the wait for the ballot to be conducted on the morning would take sometime, and wasn't worried about the four-hour procedure.

"We had a pretty good crowd though, they were very patient, because this is the biggest ballot since '93, where there were 600 people for the release of 60 blocks, this is only one block," he said.

However, Mr Inman said this was the first big ballot where people had to pay an application fee upfront since the Mining Act had been amended.

He said he believed the next block to be released, which is an extension to OPB 17, to take place in the next few months, would be very popular too.

But he said it was hard to say whether the contingent would be as big as Monday's turnout was.