A Maryland Lottery player’s car recently died, so the timing of the Eastern Shore woman’s $50,000 Powerball win was fortuitous.
“My car just went out, so I’m going to replace that,” she said Jan. 29 when she claimed her winnings at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore, her husband at her side.
A $50,000 third-tier Powerball win occurs when the ticket matches four of the first five balls drawn, plus the Powerball. The winner’s ticket missed the big $1.5 billion jackpot by a single number during the Dec. 20 drawing.
The winner was unphased by the near miss, saying, “You would like to win it all, but I’m happy with my win.”
The husband and wife plan to continue buying Powerball tickets in hopes of another big win, but they’ll be making one change to their game. In the past, she has been buying a baseline $2 ticket, but going forward, she’s going to add at least the $1 Power Play option, which increases non-jackpot prizes like her $50,000 win by a multiplier of at least 2 and possibly as much as 10. They’ll also consider adding the Double Play option, which adds a second drawing for up to $10 million to the ticket.
The winning ticket was purchased at the Dash-In store at 401 Thompson’s Creek Road in Stevensville.
Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, along with Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Both the Powerball and Double Play drawings have nine prize tiers, with Powerball prizes ranging from $4 up to the jackpot and Double Play prizes ranging from $7 to $10 million.
