St. Mary’s County Man’s Favorite Numbers Finally Pay Off

Although he missed the jackpot, St. Mary’s County resident Eric Brown is still celebrating a $150,000 third-tier Powerball win from the drawing on September 29.

Wins $150,000 Powerball prize from Sept. 29th drawing

Eric Brown is a faithful Powerball player. He doesn’t care if the jackpot is $40 million or $600 million – he always buys a month’s worth of Powerball. This time, his favorite numbers proved very lucky for the St. Mary’s County resident. Although he didn’t bring home $570 million jackpot on September 29th, he did win a $50,000 third-tier prize that was multiplied to $150,000 because of a 3X Power Play.

The 52-year-old married father of two teenage daughters has been playing Powerball since 2009. He plays his sports jersey numbers from high school and his favorite numbers 7 and 11. Last week he visited his favorite Lottery retailer, a Sheetz Store located at 22711 Three Notch Rd. in California, MD and purchased fifteen draws through October 25. He also picked up a soda and headed to work.

Eric checks the Lottery website the day after each drawing. When he checked the drawing from September 29, he saw some familiar numbers — he matched four of the white balls and the red Power Ball number.

“I was like, ‘whoa’, I have a lot of these numbers,” said the winner. “And then I looked again and realized I had the Power Ball too. I know that four numbers and the Power Ball is a $50,000 win!”

Excited, Eric called his wife at work to tell her of his big win. “I think we won $50,000,” he told her. But, still wanted to confirm the win, Eric did a bit of research and saw that he also had a 3X Power Play multiplier, increasing his win to $150,000. To further confirm the win, he downloaded the Maryland Lottery app and scanned the ticket. Sure enough, a congratulatory message showed that he was a $150,000 winner.

“I had to call my wife back,” he said. “She was not convinced and I had to send her three pictures, – one of the website numbers, one of actual ticket and the $150,000 winning message.”

The program manager for the Navy is feeling extremely grateful for the big win.

“This is such a blessing and came right in time for our family,” he shared. Eric, who will be celebrating 25 years of marriage in June, plans to use some of the winnings for an already planned anniversary trip to Hawaii where he and his wife will renew their vows. As far as the rest of the winnings, he says he will pay down some debt and save the rest.

In 2021, Maryland has had one jackpot win of $731.1 million, two second-tier $2 million wins, three second-tier $1 million wins along with 46 third-tier wins of $50,000 to $150,000. In addition to Eric’s third-tier $150,000 win, another lucky ticket worth $50,000 was sold in Chesapeake City from that same drawing.