Lottery player has one rule for games — and it lands him a big win in Maryland
A Maryland man has one rule for purchasing lottery scratch-offs: he “always, always, always” buys two of the same game, lottery officials said.
But recently he had a tricky decision to make when a game that costs more than he usually spends caught his eye, the Maryland Lottery said in a June 18 news release.
The Washington County man told lottery officials he usually only buys games worth a maximum of $20, for a total of $40. This time, however, a $50 game caught his eye.
“I’d been thinking about it for a couple of days,” the man told lottery officials.
Luckily, he chose to stick to his rule. After buying two $5,000,000 Fortune scratch-offs for a grand total of $100, the man won a $100,000 prize, according to the lottery.
“I kept uncovering $5,000 matches. There were so many of them. They just kept adding up,” the man told lottery officials.
He said it was an emotional win for him, according to lottery officials.
“Any financial questions I had about my retirement were answered, with enough left over to share,” he said, according to the lottery.
The lucky lottery winner bought his tickets at a liquor store in Hagerstown, about a 75-mile drive northwest from Baltimore, lottery officials said.
The odds of winning a prize in the $5,000,000 Fortune game, which began Feb. 10, are 1 in 2.55, according to the game’s web page.
Three $5 million top prizes remain unclaimed and six $100,000 have yet to be won, lottery officials said.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Lottery player has one rule for games — and it lands him a big win in Maryland."
