Baltimore man wins with Diamond Spectacular game
A northwest Baltimore man who bought himself two Maryland Lottery scratch-offs in honor of his July 4 birthday enjoyed a firecracker of a surprise the next day. Because he had company visiting to celebrate his birthday and to watch the July 4 fireworks, the stepfather of a dozen children had no time to play his birthday games until 11 p.m.
The 58-year-old won $25 on one of the instant tickets. The second scratch-off, a $20 Diamond Spectacular game, came from his lucky Lottery retailer – the Giant grocery store at 6780 Reisterstown Road in Baltimore. “There’s something lucky, for me, about that machine in there,” he said. The Maryland Department of Social Services employee scratched off enough of the Diamond Spectacular ticket to reveal a $500 prize and left the rest of the game to enjoy playing later.
“That brightened the whole night up,” he said. His guests gave him plenty of ideas on how to spend his $500 birthday prize before they left and he went to bed. The next morning, however, even before he had coffee, the loyal player scratched off the rest of the instant ticket and discovered his actual birthday surprise – a $10,000 win!
The winner said this game has been an extremely lucky one for him. None of his other wins on the game compare to this big prize, however. He plans to spend the money to make a down payment on a house and will keep playing the Diamond Spectacular game in hopes of winning one of the scratch-off’s bigger prizes.
The Diamond Spectacular game still has plenty of unclaimed prizes awaiting discovery at Lottery retailers. There are three unclaimed $1 million top prizes, five $50,000 prizes and 19 more $10,000 prizes.