Baltimore woman wins playing Deluxe Crossword instant ticket.
A birthday cake shopping trip turned into a Maryland Lottery Winner’s Circle celebration on June 14, which was already a red-letter day for a 32-year-old Baltimore woman.
The date was her son’s fifth birthday. Mom was on her way to buy him a cake when Lottery luck intervened. A Deluxe Crossword scratch-off gave her its top prize of $50,000 and delayed the cake purchase a bit.
The lucky lady, who enjoys playing the Lottery’s crossword scratch-offs, stopped at her favorite retailer to pick up three instant tickets. She bought two $5 Deluxe Crossword tickets and a $10 $100,000 Crossword game at Pantry 1 Food Mart in Halethorpe and scratched them off in the car. What a surprise that one of the Deluxe Crossword games turned out to be a top-prize winning ticket!
“I saw that I had four black words on top and that’s a $5 win,” said the customer service assistant for a convenience store chain. “I don’t know why I didn’t scratch the bottom.”
Instead, she took her “$5 winning ticket” back into the store to have it scanned and to cash it out. When she handed the ticket to the cashier, he seemed very amused.
“They know me there because I come in all the time,” she told Lottery officials. “He started laughing and said, ‘Well, you finally did it.’ ” He told her she really had a $50,000 winner! “Then, he handed me the print out, told me congratulations and told me to cash it at Lottery headquarters.”
Still in a state of disbelief, the mom didn’t get the birthday cake. She went straight home and shared the news with her boyfriend, who was extremely happy for her. “She deserves this win,” he said.
The mother of three, including the birthday boy, claimed her prize the same day. She said she needs time to let realization of the win sink in, but will use some of her prize for family matters, to buy a new car and will save the rest. And, what’s the plan when she leaves Lottery headquarters?
“I’m going to go get that cake for my son” she said. “That’s my good luck baby.”
Also celebrating is her lucky retailer. Pantry 1 Food Mart located at 5314 East Drive in Halethorpe earned a $500 bonus from the Lottery for selling the top-prize scratch-off in the $5 game.
The Deluxe Crossword game still has five more unclaimed $50,000 top prizes and thousands of others ranging from $5 to $10,000.