The prospecting ballot winners had cancelled a day early to give the many miners who wanted to peg a claim and register it with the mineral resources department the chance to do so before last weekend.

One of the miners still outside the office on Friday morning, Anthony Melonas, said more than 100 pegs were marked the previous day.

He said he had camped overnight to secure his claim, but was well entertained with a table tennis, a television and barbecue to fill in waiting time.

But Mr Melonas said it wasn't the first time people had camped outside the mining registrar's office.

"OPB 194, which had been previously released, but then locked up, showed the same popularity then as now."

He said the miners were worried they would be queue jumped by someone else taking possession of the claims they had pegged by registering it first.

"In the past some miners were already getting jumped, but it's worse now, because opal is not as plentiful as it was before.

"There are no laws in place to stop anyone from doing it either," he said.

Mr Melonas said it was fairly easy for someone to come along and put their pegs in after it had already been pegged.

A Department of Mineral Resources spokesperson said as a result of the prospecting period finishing by Friday morning, about 600 people had pegged claims, with 60 having been processed.

He said the department was still busy until yesterday, with 50 to 100 more claims having come in.

"The drilling must have been encouraging for the miners to peg so many number of claims," he said.