Lottery player wins big on $1 second chance ticket in Maryland. ‘Wait a minute’
Whenever a Maryland man buys a Powerball ticket, he always spends $1 more buying a second chance ticket.
“If you are going to play, you should give yourself a second chance to win,” the Baltimore man told Maryland Lottery officials in a May 23 news release.
Double Play is a second drawing that follows each Powerball drawing that gives “players a chance to win up to $10 million with the same ticket numbers,” lottery officials said in an April 1 news release.
Using numbers “based on family birth dates and times,” the medical worker bought his Powerball and Double Play ticket at Horseshoe Casino for the May 21 drawing, lottery officials said.
The man visited the lottery website to check the winning Powerball numbers but only matched one number and the Powerball, lottery officials said.
He sat tight for 30 more minutes, waiting for the Double Play results to roll in, lottery officials said.
“I looked at the numbers and then said ‘wait a minute’ I think I have a match,” he said in the release.
While the player didn’t have a match for the game’s top prize, he “had four out of five numbers and the Powerball for a third-tier prize of $50,000,” lottery officials said.
The winner told lottery officials he plans to spend his prize paying off some bills.
What to know about Mega Millions
To score the jackpot in the Mega Millions, a player must match all five white balls and the gold Mega Ball. The odds of scoring a jackpot prize are 1 in 290,472,336.
Tickets cost $5 and can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times vary by state.
Drawings are held Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. ET and can be streamed online.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
This story was originally published May 23, 2025 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Lottery player wins big on $1 second chance ticket in Maryland. ‘Wait a minute’."
