Maryland man to pay off debt after winning $50K lottery prize

Not all lottery players are superstitious. Some just pick numbers at random and hope for the best.

That was the case for a 65-year-old hospital worker in Maryland when he went into a liquor store on June 3 to buy a midday drawing Pick 5 ticket, lottery officials said in a June 12 release.

He told lottery officials he plays based on timing, picking a midday drawing one day and an evening drawing another. Officials said he stopped in while he was “out and about,” and bought the ticket using random numbers that “came to him” in the moment – 93111.

After buying his ticket and finishing his errands, he went home to take a nap before starting a shift at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It wasn’t until three days later that he remembered he had the ticket and decided to check his mobile app to see if he had won, officials said.

Get unlimited digital access Try 1 month for $1 CLAIM OFFER “I was blown away when I saw those numbers, I checked it three or four times to see if it was real,” he told lottery officials. The great-grandfather’s $1 straight bet had paid off with a $50,000 win.

The winner told officials he showed the ticket to his mother, who confirmed the win and “locked the winning ticket in a safe until he was ready to claim his prize.” The winner plans on using the money for his retirement and to pay down debt, he told officials.

The hospital worker is a resident of Baltimore.