An anonymous Gaithersburg man lucked into a $30,000 top prize on the Peppermint Payout holiday instant ticket.
The 60-year-old winner is a regular scratch-off player with his wife, saying the pair spend about $25 a week on instant tickets. They occasionally get in on the jackpot frenzy when the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots get high, but stick to scratch-offs for their regular play.
Our winner was making a quick return to the local Harris Teeter after he and his wife forgot napkins on their earlier grocery run and decided to grab a $5 scratch-off ticket. He accidentally hit the button for the $3 dollar Peppermint Payout ticket, and what a bountiful blunder it turned out to be.
Our player went home with his ticket and passed it to his wife on the couch for her to play.
“My wife gave it to my daughter-in-law to read and after 15 minutes of looking at it we checked it on the app,” said the excited winner.
Having all of his children home for the holidays, our winner waited for each of them to wake up to show them the ticket for confirmation.
When asked what he and his wife planned to do with their prize, the kind winner revealed they had already cut checks for each child, niece and nephew who were over for the holidays. “They all went home very happy this weekend,” laughed our generous player.
Another winner in this story is the Lottery retailer. For selling a top-prize scratch-off of $30,000, Harris Teeter located at 14101 Darnestown Road in Gaithersburg earns a $300 bonus from the Maryland Lottery. The bonus is equal to 1 percent of the prize.
Peppermint Payout just gave away its final top prize of $30,000. The game is a member of a family of holiday-themed scratch-offs that offer players ways to win big. Simply enter non-winning holiday scratch-offs into the Holiday Cash & Dash second-chance promotion. Players can try to win a trip to Chicago for a 90-second warehouse dash, cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 or $300 in scratch-offs. Enter the promotion through My Lottery Rewards.