A Silver Spring car salesman has plenty to celebrate after winning a $50,000 prize on the 50X the Cash scratch-off just months before his 50th birthday.
The regular Lottery player, who turns 50 in October, claimed his prize at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore on July 9. A longtime fan of scratch-offs, Pick 4 and Racetrax, he plays weekly, but almost walked away from his latest purchase empty-handed.
He bought several scratch-off tickets at State Line Market at 7817 Eastern Avenue in Silver Spring, and scratched ticket after ticket only to find non-winners.
Then he got to the last ticket in the stack and everything changed.
Initially believing he had won $5,000, he asked the store clerk to scan the ticket to confirm the prize amount. Instead, the cashier told him she wouldn’t be able to cash the ticket in the store and that he would need to contact the Lottery. She handed him the validation receipt, where the true prize amount of $50,000 was printed.
That’s when the reality of the win finally set in.
Despite the excitement, the winner has kept the news to himself.
“I’m a private person,” he said.
The winner plans to use part of his prize to pay bills and he hopes to do something memorable to mark his upcoming milestone birthday.
“I’m going to celebrate my 50th in a decent way,” he said with a smile.
State Line Market receives a $500 bonus from the Maryland Lottery for selling the top-prize winning scratch-off.
The game 50X the Cash launched Jan. 9 with nine $100,000 top prizes, of which two remain unclaimed, and 10 second-tier $50,000 prizes, of which four remain unclaimed.
