 A husband and wife from Baltimore were the lucky winners of a $2.6 million Multi-Match jackpot in the Nov. 9 drawing. |
Longtime subscriber is lucky winner of $2.6 million jackpot
An easy-going Baltimore retiree is the lucky winner of the ninth-largest jackpot in the nearly 10-year history of the Maryland Lottery’s Multi-Match game.
The longtime Lottery player and his wife arrived at Lottery headquarters on Nov. 18 to claim the $2.6 million prize he won in the Nov. 9 drawing. The winner has purchased his tickets by subscription since the in-state jackpot game began in 2006.
“I do it for the convenience,” he said. “You don’t have to stand in line at the store to buy the tickets and you don’t have to check the numbers.”
Indeed, he hadn’t yet looked at the winning numbers when he received a call the next morning from Maryland Lottery Director of Communications Carole Everett. She said his subscription matched the winning numbers: 1, 3, 23, 31, 39 and 42. He remained calm, cool and collected during that conversation.
“I’m pretty low-key,” he said with a smile.
While he is a long-term subscriber, the Baltimore resident said the largest single prize he’d previously won in Multi-Match was $20.
“I’m proof that if you keep playing you’ll win eventually,” he said, adding that he’s stuck with Multi-Match because the odds of winning a prize are better than in other games.
Multi-Match drawings take place every Monday and Thursday with a 1 in 8.5 chance of winning any prize. Only Multi-Match and Mega Millions tickets are available by subscription from the Lottery. Players can select their own numbers or have them randomly selected and may choose to subscribe for 13, 26 or 52 weeks.
The Nov. 9 Multi-Match drawing marked the first time in nearly two years that a subscriber won the game’s jackpot. A subscriber from White Plains won a $1.5 million prize in the Nov. 21, 2013 drawing.
This is also the third time the game has produced a jackpot winner this year. The first was $3.6 million in the June 8 drawing – the fourth-largest jackpot since the game’s history – claimed by a Pasadena resident. The other was $625,000 in the June 29 drawing, won by a Cambridge resident. The largest Multi-Match jackpot was $4.8 million on Sept. 19, 2009, claimed by two anonymous Dundalk residents.
This lucky winner of the $2.6 million prize and his wife of more than 40 years have opted to claim the prize as an annuity that will pay them about $68,000 a year after taxes for the next 25 years. They’ve decided not to tell their children and grandchildren about their Lottery luck – at least, not for now.
“We’ll pay some bills, fix up the house – and then leave the money to the kids,” the winner said.
The jackpot win came near the end of the Baltimore man’s subscription. “I’ve resubscribed already,” he said.