Determined Severna Park man claims prize despite illness
The Maryland Lottery’s big Bonus Match 5 winner from Friday night’s drawing wasted no time claiming his $50,000 top prize on Monday, even though he was still under the weather. The retiree welcomed the change in his prize-claiming routine that required a special trip to Lottery headquarters in Baltimore because his prize was so large!
The Severna Park man, who plays Bonus Match 5 faithfully, is big on routines and follows one when it comes to playing and checking his numbers. The 65-year-old will play his own set of numbers and then let the terminal quick pick a few sets. He did just that on Feb. 26 at Northway Liquors located at 8101 Veterans Highway in Millersville. Then, he skips watching the drawing and waits for his wife to fall asleep before checking the winning numbers on his phone.
“I like when the house is nice and quiet when I check the numbers,” he said.
His routine changed, though, the night of the drawing when the numbers on his quick-pick ticket matched the winning numbers on his phone. “I woke up my wife and showed her the ticket,” he said. “My wife, who is not a big Lottery player, said ‘Wow,’ and went back to sleep,” said the winner, laughing.
The cheerful man locked his ticket in a cabinet and enjoyed an awesome weekend thinking about what he would do with the $50,000 prize. He shared that his wife teased him about his giddiness all weekend long. Although the winner became ill on Sunday, he showed up at Lottery headquarters on Monday because he was determined to claim his big prize.
He pondered all weekend about how to best spend the $50,000 and has decided to pay bills, share some of the money with his wife and put the rest in the bank.
Also a winner is the Anne Arundel County Lottery retailer. Northway Liquors receives a $500 bonus for selling the top-prize winning ticket in the game.