A pair of Fallston residents spent a day this week running errands, one of which took them through Bel Air. Happily for them, the gas tank needed attention and the filling station they found doubles as a lottery retailer. Need one more lucky coincidence in this story? Today’s big winner had two winning tickets for relatively small amounts in her purse.
All the pieces were in place for a $150,000 Maryland Lottery surprise.
“If I hadn’t had those two tickets, I never would have gone in,” the retired office manager said Aug. 8 after claiming her prize at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore. “My husband was taking care of the gas, so I went in to cash them.”
After using part of her winnings to buy two $10 More Money scratch-offs, she returned to the car and the couple went about their errands.
It didn’t take too long for a relaxing afternoon to turn into something else altogether.
“I scratched the first ticket and found no matches,” she reported. Turning to the second, she saw a win almost immediately.
“It looked like $50,000, but I knew there was no way it could be, so I got out my glasses.” It turns out that she had been wrong, as she was off on the number of digits. The $50,000 figure had a 1 up front, and her previous personal best lottery win of $500 was left far, far in the rearview mirror.
“My husband didn’t believe me. He was so sure that I was reading the ticket incorrectly that he didn’t even pull over to look at it,” she said. The Harford County couple plan to share the $150,000 top-prize win with their family.
More Money debuted in March with five $150,000 top prizes. This win in Bel Air is the second to be claimed. Along with the three top prizes, 15 at the second-tier $10,000 level remain in unclaimed.
The Carroll Fuel station at 1467 Rock Springs Road in Bel Air receives a $1,000 bonus from the lottery for selling the top-prize winning ticket.
