 Rita Horant of Severna Park (right) was joined by her sister Margaret Beatty as Rita claimed a $10,000 top prize on the Crab Cash scratch-off. |
Avid scratch-off player had winning ticket sitting in a drawer for a month
The scratch-off that delivered the largest prize Rita Horant has ever won was sitting in a drawer in her house for a month, just waiting for her to discover her Lottery luck.
The Severna Park resident is an avid scratch-off player. More than a month ago, the 68-year-old purchased three instant tickets, including a $2 Crab Cash scratch-off that turned out to be a $10,000 winner. She found her Lottery luck at 7-Eleven #23699 located at 600 Ritchie Highway in Severna Park.
“I had put the tickets in a drawer and I forgot they were there,” she said. When Rita scratched her Crab Cash ticket, she saw that she had matched a number to one of the three winning numbers, giving her a $5,000 prize.
“I thought it was $5,000,” she said of her win. “And then, I saw the dollar sign.”
The dollar sign symbol on her ticket gave her the corresponding prize, which turned out to be another $5,000. No one else was home when she scratched the ticket, but she quickly delivered the good news to her daughter and son-in-law when they returned from a camping trip. The Anne Arundel County woman then put the instant ticket in a sandwich bag and put it back in the drawer until she could claim her prize. Her sister, Margaret Beatty of Baltimore, joined her at Lottery headquarters for the happy occasion.
Rita is enjoying a lucky streak recently. Before her Crab Cash win, the largest prize she had ever won on a Lottery scratch-off was $500 on the Bingo Multiplier game about a month ago. The mother of one has three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She said she doesn’t have any special plans for her prize money and will put it in the bank.
The Crab Cash ticket launched in April, and two of its $10,000 top prizes are still unclaimed, along with thousands of other prizes ranging from $2 to $5,000.