Skeptical relatives couldn’t sway lottery player’s belief she won. ‘Broke the spell’
A Maryland woman is particular about how she scratches her lottery tickets.
With a red marker ready, she starts by scratching the bottom of her ticket, or “where the big prizes are,” Maryland Lottery officials said in a Sept. 25 news release.
“I start with the highest row first because you don’t win those,” the woman told lottery officials.
By using this strategy, the woman told lottery officials she believes it increases her chances of winning as she plays.
But to her disbelief, “it didn’t work that way” as she scratched her $10 FAST PLAY ticket from a Clarksville gas station, according to officials.
On the ticket’s fifth row, “she crossed off two non-matches then put her marker down on a match before circling it,” lottery officials said.
Below the match was an amount of $1,000.
However, it was also in a 50X multiplier row, meaning she won a second-tier prize of $50,000, according to lottery officials.
“That’s when it snowballed into the ‘no ways,’” the woman told lottery officials.
Clouded in disbelief, she took the ticket and showed her father.
“He said it wasn’t a winner,” lottery officials said.
Still unsure, the woman showed it to her daughter, a lawyer.
“She said it wasn’t a winner,” officials said.
Even still, the woman decided to check one final time, using the lottery’s app to scan the ticket.
The scan “broke the spell of disbelief;” she won $50,000, according to lottery officials.
“If you’re expecting it, you’re not playing right,” the woman said.
The woman, “a lifelong lottery player,” told officials she already has plans for her big win.
“I’m going to get a new car,” the woman said.
Clarksville is about a 25-mile drive southwest from Baltimore.
This story was originally published September 25, 2024 at 4:12 PM.
