Worker picks numbers for lottery player when he can’t think of any. It pays off big
A Maryland man isn’t much for trying his hand at different lottery games — at least, that used to be the case.
The Baltimore resident usually sticks to playing “Powerball or Mega Millions when the jackpots are high,” the Maryland Lottery said in a March 19 news release.
But during a recent trip to a food mart, lottery officials said the man’s friend, who “always seems to win,” convinced him to try his luck on a different lottery game – Pick 5.
So he played a “$1 straight bet ticket” in a March 14 drawing, officials said.
“I never played before and I couldn’t think of five random numbers so I told the retailer to pick the numbers for me,” the man told lottery officials. “I wasn’t expecting to win anything.”
Days went by, and as the man was filling up his gas tank, officials said he remembered he had bought a ticket.
He ran inside the store, where an employee scanned the ticket.
The employee told the man he had won, but “the store couldn’t cash a winning ticket that large,” officials said.
“I thought it was a defective ticket because of the retailer not telling me how much it was,” the man said.
Puzzled, the man headed to a casino to get his prize, only to learn he won $50,000, officials said.
“I could not believe what I was hearing,” the man said.
A prize that large can only be claimed at lottery headquarters, officials said.
The man said he plans to use his winnings to pay bills and “spoil his wife.”
While the man didn’t previously try his hand at a new lottery game, he said he plans to continue playing Pick 5.
“After something like this happens to you, you’ve got to feel more motivated to play and I plan to play more often,” the man said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2024 at 1:50 PM with the headline "Worker picks numbers for lottery player when he can’t think of any. It pays off big."
