A $50,000 whim: Hagerstown woman picks a winning lottery ticket when she tries a new game
A Hagerstown woman has won $50,000 in a scratch-off game from the Maryland Lottery, according to lottery officials.
A release on the lottery's website says the woman is a retired information technology specialist.
“I’m actually a jackpot game player,” she told lottery officials last week. “But every once in a while, a scratch game catches my eye.”
In this instance, it was the $1 Million Royalegame that grabbed her attention, making her the latest to win the $20 instant ticket’s second-tier prize.
'There was just something about that ticket'
She was out in late December and needed a gas fill-up. “I stopped at the first gas station I saw," she said. "As I was waiting for the tank to fill, I noticed that the store there sold lottery.
“Instead of getting my usual Mega Millions and Powerball tickets, for some reason, I changed my mind. I don’t know why,” she said. “There was just something about that ticket.”
Back at home, she scratched off her instant ticket, uncovering the numbers in the playing field but not the prizes beneath each number. “I had no matches, which was disappointing,” she recalled. “But there was one symbol instead of a number there.”
She read the game rules and noted the symbol earned the prize beneath it. “I expected to win my money back, so I was happy.” But when she learned how much she had won, “it was shock," she said. "It was disbelief. Could it really be $50,000?”
The winner and her husband plan to share their prize with their family. “A big event, I think,” she said, “maybe a trip. Either way, it’ll be all of us together.”
The winning ticket was purchased at AC&T #240 at 1701 Dual Highway.
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Two other Hagerstown tickets are winners
Two $10,000 winning lottery tickets also were recently purchased from Hagerstown retailers.
The $1 Million Royale game landed on retailers’ shelves last July with seven $1 million top prizes available. Five remain unclaimed, as do four more of the instant ticket’s $50,000 second-tier prize and 52 $10,000 prizes.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hagerstown woman wins $50,000 from Maryland Lottery
