Baltimore County man is first $10,000 winner on recently launched ticket
A Carney resident’s holiday season started with a $10,000 surprise gift from the Maryland Lottery on Dec. 2.
The 50-year-old Lottery enthusiast, who works in sales, was taking his car to a mechanic for brake work when he stopped and purchased two Diamond 7s scratch-off tickets at the Margate BP, located at 1601 York Road in Lutherville.
“I’m a pretty consistent player, not every day, but when I buy scratch-offs I’ll buy $20 worth, and I usually get two different $10 tickets,” he said. “This time I decided to get two of the Diamond 7s.”
After returning to his car, he scratched the first of the tickets and started finding prizes.
“I scratched the symbols at the top and the first one was $50,” he said. “I thought, ‘OK, that’s good.’ And then I scratched the next one, and the next one, and the next one.”
And those three symbols revealed another $850 in prizes. But there was a lot more waiting for him on the bottom portion of the ticket.
“I got down there and on the first line, the first three things I see are $1,000, $1,000, $1,000 … that’s when my anxiety level went up,” he said.
“I started thinking maybe it was a $100,000 prize. I called my girlfriend, but she didn’t answer.”
Before scratching any further on the ticket, his next call went to his parents.
“I called my father and told him, and he asked how much I’d won, and I told him I didn’t know yet,” he said.
His father replied with sage advice.
“He told him, ‘Well, finish it!’” said the lucky winner’s mother, who joined him at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore as he claimed his prize.
When he followed his father’s instruction he revealed the rest of his $10,000 prize. The Baltimore County resident said his largest previous Lottery win was $500 on a scratch-off ticket a couple of years ago, and he recently won $270 playing Keno. He doesn’t have any special plans for his prize money, but is thinking about doing some work on his house and purchasing a new treadmill. He also plans to buy holiday presents for his two children.
The Diamond 7s ticket launched on Nov. 23, and this is the first of its $10,000 prizes to be claimed. There are still 13 more $10,000-winning tickets waiting to be found and four $100,000 top-prize tickets.