A Prince George’s County hotel employee who buys Lottery tickets twice a week was doing just that in November when he noticed the Holiday Raffle option on the vending machine at Marlow Wings in Temple Hills. He bought one of the $20 tickets, tucked in his wallet and didn’t think about it again for almost two months.
“I’ve had luck with raffles in the past,” the Suitland resident said. “I thought to myself, ‘Somebody has to win, why not?’” Shortly after the purchase, the player was in an airplane, headed overseas for a lengthy visit with his family.
He returned having all but forgotten about the ticket, which turned out to be worth $100,000.
When asked if he had safeguarded his ticket during his travels, he grimaced: “I was opening and closing my wallet all the time when I was away. There were so many times the ticket could have fallen out or blown away. I forgot it was in there.”
Happily, the world traveler managed to hang onto the $100,000 winner. He claimed his prize Jan. 12 at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore and told his tale of nearly missing out.
“I was playing my numbers after I returned when I saw a raffle sign in a store. That’s when I remembered,” he said. Digging through his wallet produced the ticket and a quick scan produced the biggest surprise of his life.
“It’s hard to describe what it felt like. Certainly not like anything I’ve experienced before,” he said.
Meanwhile, you can find Marlow Wings at 4147 Branch Avenue, in case you think any lottery luck might still be there.
The Maryland Lottery Holiday Raffle ran Nov. 3 through Jan. 1, with winning numbers drawn on Jan. 2, including for a top prize of $1 million and 10 prizes of $100,000 each. The winning numbers – including 10,000 for prizes of $50 to $500 – were selected from among the 237,206 sequentially numbered tickets sold.
Tickets, numbered 000001 through 237206, were $20 each and were available at Maryland Lottery retailers across the state.
A list of all winning numbers is available on the Holiday Raffle page at mdlottery.com, and the page also has a search tool that can be used to check specific numbers to see if they are winners. Holiday Raffle tickets can also be checked by scanning them with the Maryland Lottery app, or at any Lottery retailer. Winners have 182 days from Jan. 2 to claim their prizes.
