Aberdeen $50K Scratch-Off Winner: 'I Just Got A Funny Feeling'

ABERDEEN, MD — Luck led an Aberdeen man to correctly pick a scratch-off ticket worth $50,000. Liam Ferns, 48, claimed the top prize in the $50,000 Cash scratch-off this week, the Maryland Lottery said.

His decision to purchase a scratch-off game occurred suddenly. It was a hot Sunday, two weeks ago, when Ferns decided to wash his car. He was feeling a thirsty, so he stopped in the Abingdon Royal Farms store next door for a bottle of water. As he walked past the Lottery vending machine, something came over him.

“I just got a funny feeling,” Ferns told Maryland Lottery officials. “So, I went over to the machine, closed my eyes and randomly picked a ticket.”

His finger was in front of the $50,000 Cash game, so he purchased it.

He waited to scratch the game until after the car wash and right before vacuuming the interior of his car. As he scratched off the surface of the $20 game, he got to the fourth row and saw that his matched number revealed a $50,000 prize underneath.

“I thought, ‘This has got to be wrong,’” the lottery news release said. “But, when I scanned it back at the store, it said ‘See Lottery,’ so it had to be right.”

The Harford County player then headed home to show the lucky scratch-off to Danielle, his long-term girlfriend.

“We joke with each other all the time,” said Danielle, who accompanied Liam to Lottery headquarters in Baltimore to claim the prize. “I just knew the ticket was fake, but I was thrilled to find out it wasn’t.”

Fern claimed his $50,000 top prize this week. A shift leader at an oil refinery, he plans to retire in about 12 years and said the prize will go into savings to boost his retirement fund.

Royal Farms #187, at 10 Box Hill South Parkway in Abingdon, receives a $500 bonus from the Lottery for selling the winning scratch-off.