Anne Arundel County man wins $25,005 in drawings spanning Dec. 20-Feb. 7

An Annapolis resident and his wife had a big surprise waiting for them last week when they took a close look at a Mega Millions ticket that had been sitting on their kitchen counter since late December.

Their 15-draw ticket with the Megaplier option, which covered the drawings from Dec. 20 through Feb. 7, delivered a total prize of $25,005.

“We were doing our budget and we said, ‘We need a million dollars – let’s look at this ticket and see if we won,’ ” the lucky winner said.

The 43-year-old purchased the $30 ticket on Dec. 19 at High’s #36 located at 158 Old Mill Bottom Road in Annapolis. He said he picked his numbers after consulting mdlottery.com and looking for Mega Millions digits that seemed to be drawn frequently. In the Jan. 10 drawing, he matched four numbers (11, 20, 41 and 59) plus the Mega Ball number (15). That delivered a base prize of $5,000, and because he added the Megaplier option to his ticket, the 5x multiplier that was drawn on Jan. 10 quintupled his winnings to $25,000. The ticket also won $5 when he matched the Mega Ball in the Dec. 23 drawing, which also had a 5x multiplier.

“The first thing I looked for is to see if I’d gotten the Mega Ball,” he said. “Then I started going back through the rest of the numbers for that drawing and I saw 59 and 41, and I said, ‘Wait, let me start at the beginning.’ ”

The Anne Arundel County resident said he and his wife will happily use the prize money to pay off their car and their credit card bills.

“We’ll be down to the mortgage, so that’s nice,” he said.