Her husband did the homework and she did the leg work, a Dundalk woman said when explaining how a scratch-off ticket worth a half a million dollars came into their lives. The pair visited Lottery headquarters July 15 to claim a Gifts of Green top-prize winning ticket, capping off an experience she described as “life changing.”
The winner and her husband work at a Maryland college, and both are avid instant ticket players, and both are nearing retirement.
“We play because we love it,” she said. “It’s something we can have fun with together. We once won $500. That was exciting.”
As she was heading to the store late last month, her husband asked her to get two scratch tickets, naming a specific game.
“I’d been checking the remaining big prizes on the lottery website and Gifts of Green had a few top prizes still available,” he said. “So that was the one.”
When the last of the groceries were put away, the couple sat down to scratch their tickets. It took less than a minute for them to uncover the symbol that would insert a whole different level of excitement into their lives.
“My eyes went back and forth between the [dollar sign] symbol and the $500,000 beneath it and the game’s rules. I could not believe what I was seeing,” the wife said. Her stillness caught her husband’s attention.
“When I looked in her eyes and heard the tremor in her voice, I knew it was something big,” he said.
Gifts of Green is a $20 game that debuted in October 2025 with seven $500,000 top prizes. Two remain in circulation along with two $25,000 second-tier prizes. The Walmart at 2399 North Point Boulevard in Dundalk sold the big winner, earning the store a $1,000 bonus.
The Baltimore couple will dedicate their winnings to a new vehicle and their retirement.
“We’ve been trying to figuring out how retirement was going to work for us. This takes away so many of the worries,” she said.
