Prince George’s County couple wins $100,000
Landover residents Nicole and Thomas are longtime players of just about every game the Maryland Lottery has to offer with the exception of scratch-offs. Saturday found Nicole stopping at a Lottery retailer to pick up their tickets for the week when a sequence of events began and ended with a $100,000 Big Money Maker scratch-off win.
Nicole explained that she had just about completed her Lottery transaction at Palmer Liquors in Landover when her eyes shifted from the change in her hand to the instant ticket display in front of her. “I had $25 in cash and, staring me in the face, were two $10 tickets and a $5 one,” said the Prince George’s County resident. Scratch-offs had never really appealed to Nicole before.
“I’ve bought one or two over the years, just to see if I could win with them because I seem to win with every other game,” said the mother of four. “I never did have luck with them, but with that exact change and those three tickets right there, it suddenly occurred to me to try one more time.”
An immediate $50 win followed by one for $25 convinced her to buy one more scratch-off. “They paid me with a few $10 bills so I decided to get one more ticket, the first $10 ticket I could find that I hadn’t already played.” That instant ticket was Big Money Maker.
Nicole was so stunned when she revealed the $100,000 prize that she asked a customer to look at her game and see what he saw. “He looked and said, ‘You just won $100,000!’ I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do. The guy advised me to head home to figure it out.”
The couple told Lottery officials they slept very little during the next few nights. Nerves and excitement abounded until they visited Lottery headquarters to claim the prize.
Her $100,000 Big Money Maker win is the fourth top-prize winning scratch-off discovered since the game’s June debut. Four top-prize winning scratch-offs await discovery, along with 25 $10,000 prizes. Try your luck at Palmer Liquors, too. The Prince George’s County store located at 7222 Martin Luther King Jr. Highway in Landover earns a $1,000 bonus from the Lottery for selling a top-prize winning scratch-off.