Maryland enjoys two second-tier winners from Aug. 16 drawing
A father and son on Monday morning claimed the first of Maryland’s two $250,000 second-tier Mega Millions winning tickets from the Friday, Aug. 16 drawing.
The father, a retiree from Baltimore, and the son, a U.S. Postal Service employee who works in Annapolis, often play Powerball and Mega Millions together. The two men were all smiles about their first big win when they claimed their prize at
Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore. Both have plenty of ideas about how they will spend their share of the winnings.
“I’m going to do some traveling down south, maybe to Texas and Florida,” said the 83-year-old father. The 43-year-old son and his wife, who live in Edgewood, will probably pay off the house and put the winnings in a college fund for their child.
The son enjoys his job and plans to keep working.
No one hit Friday’s $43 million Mega Millions jackpot, which rolled to $51 million for the upcoming drawing on Tuesday, Aug. 20. There were five second-tier winners; Arizona, New Jersey and Virginia each sold one winning ticket while Maryland sold two winning tickets.
The son, a more casual player than his dad, often drops by to give his father money to buy Mega Millions or Powerball tickets for the two of them. His dad bought a $5 ticket Friday night, picking four sets of numbers and letting the machine pick two sets.
At home, the dad stayed up until 11 p.m. for the drawing. “I waited until the numbers came up, and I wrote them down,” he said. “I looked at my ticket and then I looked at my ticket again. I hit five numbers!”
He couldn’t sleep and at 1 a.m. checked the numbers again.
“I wanted to confirm that what I was seeing was true,” he said. His first set of five numbers matched! The father signed the ticket and called his son with the great news, warning him in advance that he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep the rest of the night. Was he ever wrong! His son just went back to bed and slept soundly.
“The news didn’t quite register,” the son said.
His dad, meanwhile, was unable to sleep. He hid the ticket in his china cabinet all weekend. Both men have kept their win a secret from everyone and plan to keep it that way. They also plan to keep playing Powerball and Mega Millions!
They bought the lucky ticket at Dolfield Fresh Food Market at 3521 Dolfield Ave. in Baltimore.