Ryan is a $1 million winner thanks to a scratch-off gifted to him by a stranger who he allowed to go ahead of him in a checkout line.
One act of kindness at a grocery checkout line resulted in a thank you gift of Lottery scratch-offs that made a Severn man a millionaire.
Ryan, the new millionaire, allowed a woman in line behind him at the Walmart at 407 George Clauss Boulevard in Severn to go ahead of him on a recent visit. The woman, in turn, gave him two $10 scratch-offs.
One of those tickets turned out to be a $50 winner. Ryan was feeling lucky, so he used that $50 to buy two $1,000,000 Crossword scratch-offs.
And one of those turned out to be a $1 million top prize winner.
Ryan told his tale of winning when he claimed the prize on Feb. 25 at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore.
He had been shopping for his mother, and also had a winning scratch-off worth $500 that he was planning to redeem.
After the fellow shopper gave him the tickets, he did not play the games, but rather just scratched the prize check to reveal their QR codes. When he scanned the tickets on the Walmart store’s Lottery vending machine, he saw the message “see lottery” for one of them. He knew this message meant he won a big prize, but not exactly how big.
Initially he thought he had a $10,000 winner, but later realized he was off by a factor of 100, and that’s when he really began celebrating.
The win is life-changing for Ryan as he and his fiancée are getting married in a few weeks. Prior to this, they were stressing about the wedding. But Ryan and his bride-to-be remain optimistic about their future. Ryan currently works as a carpet cleaner and likes to collect rare coins. Part of their winnings will go toward buying new cars for each of them.
The Walmart location receives a $1,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
Ryan is the first $1 million winner on the Maryland Lottery’s first $25 scratch-off. It went on sale earlier this month with four top prizes, leaving three unclaimed at the $1 million level as of Feb. 26. Another 10 prizes remain unclaimed at the second tier $100,000 level, along with 48 $20,000 prizes and thousands of additional prizes ranging from $25 to $2,000.
