Bought Tech the Halls scratch-offs in hopes of winning second-chance drawing
A Baltimore woman who is playing the Maryland Lottery’s Tech the Halls scratch-offs so she can enter non-winning tickets in second-chance drawings just got the surprise of her life. She won $30,000!
Reality set in when the 63-year-old entered the Winners’ Lounge at Lottery headquarters and saw a giant check for $30,000 with her name on it. The grandmother of one bought her winning $3 ticket in hopes of ultimately winning a Sony® Xperia™ tablet. The Lottery is offering 30 tablets as prizes in a second-chance drawing open to players with non-winning $3 Tech the Halls scratch-offs.
Tech the Halls scratch-offs have a different high-tech prize assigned to each price point. For example, Sony® digital zoom cameras are prizes in the second-chance drawing entered using non-winning $1 tickets while Sony® Vaio® laptops are prizes in the drawing entered using non-winning $10 tickets. In all, the Lottery will award 150 high-tech prizes in the second-chance drawings, which players can enter until Jan. 21. The Tech the Halls family of scratch-offs has $1, $2, $3, $5 and $10 tickets with top prizes up to $100,000.
Our avid scratch-off player jumped into the game when it began on Oct. 28. She liked the tablet and laptop second-chance prizes. “I knew the $3 tickets were hitting,” she said, “so I decided I’m going to play it until I win something.”
On Nov. 7, the retired administrator bought $20 worth of tickets while grocery shopping. She went home to scratch the tickets and enter the non-winners into the drawings. The Baltimore native stopped cold after scratching off the last ticket, which was the $30,000 winner.
“I kept saying some indistinguishable words and my daughter came running into the dining room,” our winner said. She showed her daughter the ticket and her concern gave way to celebration. “We started screaming and dancing,” she said. “This has been a trying time. This win is wonderful.”
The winner has several ideas for how to spend her prize. She is living temporarily with her daughter, who is her only child, and she definitely plans to share some of her winnings with her daughter. Because she is moving in December to her own place, our winner can spend some of the prize getting moved and settled. She may also indulge her passion for books. The bibliophile is reading three books simultaneously and owns numerous first editions. Deciding which books to keep and which to give away when she downsized to move in with her daughter was very difficult, she said.
Our Tech the Halls winner bagged her lucky ticket at Shoppers at 2801 Smith Ave. in Baltimore.