Aji Abraham of Columbia collects a $50,000 top prize on the You Win scratch-off ticket. |
Family plans to buy a home after finding Lottery luck on You Win ticket
After grocery shopping with his family last week, Aji Abraham found himself with $20 in change as he made his way toward the store’s exit. Along his path to the door at the Weis Market on Washington Boulevard in Laurel were both a Lottery scratch-off ticket vending machine and a rendezvous with Lottery luck.
Three minutes after playing a $5 You Win game – one of four instant tickets that he chose randomly from the machine – the Columbia man and his wife shared an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime Lottery moment: Their ticket was a $50,000 top-prize winner.
The 41-year-old store clerk said he buys lottery tickets about once a week, whenever he happens to be in or near a Lottery retailer. Aji had no idea that the Weis store was a Lottery retailer and no plan to buy tickets that day.
“I had the left-over cash in my hand as I passed the machine,” he said. “It was really a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
Studying his You Win ticket closely, his wife asked if Aji was OK as tears were running down his face.
“I began crying when I realized that we’d won $50,000,” he said. “When I told my wife, she started crying, too.”
The couple has been putting together a down payment for a new home.
“We were amazed at the blessing,” Aji told us, his wife said. “To know that we could buy our dream house tomorrow instead of next year was just amazing. It was very emotional.”
The Weis Market at 9250 Washington Boulevard in Laurel is a winner as well. For selling the top-prize-winning scratch-off, the store will receive a $500 bonus from the Lottery – equal to 1 percent of the prize value.
The You Win instant game debuted in August, and five of its $50,000 top prizes are still unclaimed. There are also 17 remaining $5,000 prizes, 30 $1,000 prizes and thousands of additional prizes ranging from $5 to $500.