Free Ticket Delivers $50,000 Bonus Match 5 Top Prize

A retired carpenter arrived in Baltimore on May 13 with a fun story for Lottery officials, along with a Bonus Match 5 top-prize-winning ticket. The manner in which it made its way to him, along with the $50,000 win the ticket produced, put a smile on his face.

The Calvert County resident is a longtime Lottery fan, buying three or four tickets a week. He’s currently a fan of FAST PLAY games. “They’ve treated me pretty well.”

It wasn’t a FAST PLAY ticket, though, that won him his prize last week. Not directly, anyway. His story begins at a Fastop convenience store where our big winner stopped for a snack and to try his luck.

“I chose the Lightning Cash FAST PLAY game and was surprised when a second ticket came out,” he said. The Southern Maryland man had just benefitted from a Lottery promotion awarding a Bonus Match 5 ticket to anyone buying that particular FAST PLAY game.

Not a regular Bonus Match 5 player – in fact he can’t remember if he had ever played it – he scanned the unfamiliar ticket on his Lottery app the next morning.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he told us. “Total shock.” He added that even after confirming the win at a Lottery retailer and going through the claim process, he still doesn’t really believe it happened.

The Fastop store at 8834 Chesapeake Avenue in North Beach receives a $500 bonus for selling the Bonus Match 5 top-prize-winning ticket.

Players who purchase a $5 Lightning Cash FASY PLAY ticket through May 24 will automatically receive a $2 Bonus Match 5 ticket.