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Tyrone Jones Grady of Rosedale won $10,000 on the Instant Millionaire scratch-off game. |
Avid scratch-off player claims prize on Instant Millionaire ticket
Tyrone Jones Grady arrived at Maryland Lottery Headquarters early on the morning of Feb. 10, even before officials had unlocked the doors, about 18 hours after buying a lucky Instant Millionaire scratch-off ticket. But he was wide awake. It turned out that he hadn’t slept too much the previous night.
“I woke up very, very early this morning,” Tyrone said. “I was just too excited to go back to sleep.”
The 28-year-old Walmart employee stopped by Kenwood Liquors at 6247 Kenwood Avenue in Baltimore on Feb. 9 to cash a few winning tickets he’d collected.
“I’m a big instant ticket fan,” Tyrone said. “At least three times a week I get a few.”
He was hoping the Lottery luck that had produced that handful of winning tickets was still with him, so he picked out a few more to bring home, including one $20 Instant Millionaire game, which he scratched when he got home.
“I got all the way to the bottom of the ticket without getting a match, but then there it was,” he said.
Scratching away the latex that covered the prize he’d won, Tyrone was in for a surprise.
“I saw the $10 and thought that’s what I’d won,” he said. “But I looked closely and realized that there was more to scratch – a comma and three more zeros.”
Stunned by what he saw, he called over his fiancée to look at the ticket.
“She didn’t believe me at first, but then her hand started shaking,” Tyrone said.
After catching up on some sleep, Tyrone will decide what to do with his winnings.
“We have some bills, of course, and this will be a big help,” he said. “I think we’ll find something fun to do with it, too.”
Even after Tyrone’s big win, Instant Millionaire has plenty of big prizes to offer, including one more of its $1 million top prizes. There’s also a $50,000 winner out there somewhere and seven more $10,000-winning tickets.