Truck driver stops for gas and buys lottery ticket. Then he sees ‘all those zeros’
A truck driver stopped at a Maryland gas station to refuel and get some coffee, then he decided to play the lottery.
He won $25 and “looked for one more to play,” he told Maryland Lottery officials.
He bought a ticket to another game, then he saw “all those zeros.”
The Cumberland man won the top prize of $1 million in the Fast Play Monopoly Properties game, the Maryland Lottery announced in a March 13 news release.
He was driving his wife to work on March 10 when he realized they needed to fill up their tank. He walked into the Circle K in Cumberland and bought a coffee and a lottery ticket with $5 in his pocket, he told lottery officials.
With the money he won in the first Fast Play game, he played another — but he didn’t believe what he saw right away.
“It was very early. I figured the machine might still be firing up,” he told lottery officials.
When he realized the $1 million win was real, he started shouting.
“The cashier asked if I was okay,” the Allegany County man told lottery officials. “I gave him a ‘thumbs up’ and rushed home.”
The man and his wife said they plan to use the winnings to buy a property they’ve been looking at for some time.
“This is such a blessing for the family,” he said. “It will mean so much to us, so much for the kids.”
He described the win as “beyond our wildest dreams.”
Fast Play Monopoly Properties debuted in January and costs $20 to play, according to the Maryland Lottery. Thirteen top prizes of $1 million remain in the game, in addition to 13 second-tier prizes of $10,000.
The truck driver claimed his prize at lottery headquarters, but he told lottery officials the win still hadn’t sunk in.
“Now that I’m here and all the paperwork is done, I still can’t believe it,” he said.
Cumberland is in western Maryland, a 140-mile drive from Baltimore.
This story was originally published March 13, 2024 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Truck driver stops for gas and buys lottery ticket. Then he sees ‘all those zeros’."