Matthew “Shane” Funkhouser happily poses with his new investment money |
Wins $77,700 on 7x the Money scratch-off
After struggling for years to keep his home improvement business afloat during tough economic times, an Anne Arundel County man says his lucky break has come in the form of a Maryland Lottery scratch-off ticket.
Good fortune found Matthew “Shane” Funkhouser on Oct. 11 at a Royal Farms store in Edgewater, where he cashed in a winning $10 scratch-off ticket he’d been carrying around in a back pocket. Shane reinvested his winnings in two 7x the Money scratch-offs. The Edgewater resident still doesn’t know what made him break his lifelong routine of scratching newly purchased tickets in the store. The 32-year-old father of one just took the tickets home.
A lifelong scratch-off player, Shane was optimistic that he would win something. He typically wins something, from a smaller amount up to $500, when he plays a scratch-off for the first time.
“When I scratched the first prize amount for $1,000, I almost lost it,” he said. As he kept scratching and revealing more green 7s, he grew more and more excited. “Then, I saw all 15 of the 7s on the ticket.” He had just won $77,700!
“I almost put a hole through the kitchen floor jumping up and down,” he said. Shane alerted his parents, family members and a few friends and signed the winning ticket. However, at some point in all of the excitement, the ticket ended up on the kitchen counter with the signature facing down on a moist spot. The ink of Shane’s signature smeared when he picked the ticket up.
“I was so upset,” he recalled. “When I picked it up I saw the water and I went into panic mode. I said, ‘This is the biggest break I’ve had in my life. There is no way I’m not going to get to cash this.’ ”
Shane carefully dried off the ticket and enough of his signature remained that he was able to claim his $77,700 prize at Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore. Until then, he placed the ticket in a waterproof bag and hid it carefully “where no one would find it.”
His Lottery luck continued the night before he claimed his prize. Shane won four of seven Keno games and then played 11 scratch-off tickets, hitting eight out of 11.
“This could not have come to a better person,” Shane said, noting that he enjoys running a small business and creating jobs in the community. “I always said, if I could get one chance I would set myself up for the rest of my life.”
Shane has detailed plans to invest his winnings in small-business ventures. He is considering buying a tow truck operation and helping a friend expand a vehicle customization business to a third site in the Annapolis area. His six-year-old daughter Kamryn also will benefit from his lucky break, Shane said. “Kamryn will have a quite a Christmas this year.”
Our happy winner bought the lucky ticket at the Royal Farms store located at 301 Londontown Road in Edgewater.