BALTIMORE, MD — A spontaneous lunch break turned into a $57,777 payday for a Nottingham man, thanks to a scratch-off ticket bought on a whim.
The lucky winner, who chose to remain anonymous, claimed his prize on July 30 at Maryland Lottery headquarters. He said he usually plays “a little bit,” influenced by friends and coworkers who regularly buy tickets.
On a recent workday, he stopped by Ashland Café in Cockeysville for lunch. Finding himself alone and waiting for his order, he decided to buy four scratch-off tickets to pass the time.
“There was no one to eat lunch with, so I got four scratch-off tickets to kill time,” he said.
He brought the tickets back to his office and scratched them later. The very first one—a Lucky 7s Tripler—revealed an auto-win symbol for the top prize: $57,777.
“I was like, ‘What?’ and I put it aside,” he recalled. After scratching the rest, he scanned all the tickets using the Maryland Lottery app, which confirmed the big win.
When he shared the news with his wife, she was doubtful at first. “She said, ‘That’s not real,’” he laughed.
The money, however, is very real. The winner plans to use the prize to help pay his children’s tuition and bolster his retirement savings.
“It’ll let me start putting more in my 401(k),” he said.
