Retiree wins with MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB™ game
Black Friday crowds, lines and sparse parking can frustrate some shoppers into just giving up and going home. That’s just what happened to an Aberdeen man and his nephew on Black Friday, which put them in the right retailer at the right time to buy Maryland’s only $20,000 winning ticket for the new MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB™ game.
The 80-year-old man and his nephew had discussed the new $5 Friday night multistate game that launched in October and is on sale at Maryland retailers. When they threw in the towel on Black Friday shopping, the pair made a quick stop at the Aberdeen Shell at 1026 Middleton Road to buy snacks. The Harford County man, on a whim, also bought a MONOPOLY MILLIONARIES’ CLUB ticket for the Nov. 28 evening drawing. His impulse buy certainly paid off because his ticket was one of only two in the country that matched 4 out of 5 numbers plus the Monopoly property of St. James Place!
When the lucky federal retiree traveled to Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore to claim his prize, he knew only that he was a winner. His nephew kept him in the dark about the size of his win so he was delighted to hear his ticket was worth $20,000! “Oh, this was pretty good,” he said, smiling.
In retirement, our winner divides his time between fishing and church, with the bulk of his time spent at church. He plans to use his prize to pay off a mortgage and a few other bills.
Maryland has awarded one $1 million prize and three $20,000 prizes since the game’s debut. It features three ways to win $1 million. Players can win the Top Prize that starts at $15 million and rolls incrementally to $25 million. Once a player hits the Top Prize, a separate drawing is conducted to award a minimum of 10 Millionaires’ Club prizes of $1 million each. Each week the Top Prize is not hit, the number of $1 million prizes also increases. The Top Prize for the Dec. 5 drawing is $25 million with a minimum award of 16 $1 million prizes.
The third way to win $1 million is on the national weekly primetime “MONOPOLY MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB” TV game show. It starts airing Feb. 7 on WBAL and on the Game Show Network. The show will feature an audience of players randomly selected through drawings. To enter the drawing, players must first go online to www.playmmc.com and enter the “Web Code” from their winning and non-winning tickets. They play an online Monopoly game and build property sets. Each completed set qualifies the player for a drawing entry.
Selected players will fly to Las Vegas where the show is taped and receive a five-day, four-night stay for two plus spending money. Billy Gardell, star of “Mike & Molly,” is hosting the show.