A Baltimore County man’s outing to bring a Pizza dinner home to his family leads to a $1 million scratch-off win. The Lottery player was annoyed by encounters with small packaging of things that eventful day, but his annoyance turned to excitement after scratching a $20 Extreme Green scratch-off.
It was about two weeks ago when the Gywnn Oak man’s wife sent him out to a new pizza spot for the family’s dinner. But, when he arrived, he was a bit disappointed by the size of the pizza.
“How am I going to feed everyone with this tiny pizza,” he said. “It was supposed to be a large.”
Annoyed, he jumped in his car and drove off, but noticed a 7-Eleven store, so he decided to stop and pick up a few scratch-offs. Again, the Lottery fan was presented with something small, the Lottery scratch-off display. And this upset him even more.
“I’m looking like, ‘There’s probably no good scratch-offs in there, it’s so little,’” he related when he claimed his prize Aug. 31 at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore.
But he purchased three Extreme Green tickets anyway, and, after making a few other stops, headed home with his little pizza and the tickets bought out of a little box display. He played the games the next day before going to work.
“I only scratched the bottom and when I scanned the tickets, the last one had a message stating it was a $1 million winner,” he smiled. “I thought something was wrong and scanned it several more times before it sunk in.”
The excited winner took a picture of the message and sent it to his wife.
“He called me and he sounded so nervous and giddy,” she said when she accompanied her husband to claim the prize. “I kept calm so he could settle down and go to work.”
After work, the big winner scratched the whole ticket revealing how he won, signed the back of it and gave to his wife to lock in a safe.
Still giddy, the winner tried to relax the day before claiming the prize, but was still very anxious. When finally claiming the prize, he told Lottery officials that what makes him the happiest is that they will finally be debt free. He also said he and his wife intend to open a business.
The winning $1 million Extreme Green ticket, that has four top prizes remaining, was purchased at the 7-Eleven at 9856 Liberty Road in Randallstown. The Lottery retailer will receive a $1,000 bonus for selling the ticket.
