$200K Winning Lotto Ticket Pads IRA For Financial Specialist

UPPER MARLBORO,MD — A financial specialist who forked over $50 - at the encouragement of her boyfriend - to buy a $5 million LUXE scratch-off ticket ended up winning $200,000.

“I guess I’ll give him $5 or $10 since it was his idea,” the winner joked while claiming the prize at Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore.

She said she and her boyfriend were at Crain Convenience & Tobacco at 1340 Crain Highway in Bowie when she decided to buy a lottery ticket, and her boyfriend suggested the $5,000,000 LUXE scratch-off.

“I took it home and set aside for a time,” the financial specialist said. Her boyfriend asked her a few days later if she had scratched it and she recalls telling him, “I’ll let it marinate awhile.”

The $5,000,000 LUXE ticket has 10 rows of five numbers for a total of 50 chances to win. When the player scratched her ticket, she had a single match on the last number in the last row with the prize amount $200,000 under it.

She immediately called her boyfriend, but he didn’t pick up. True to her profession, she immediately checked on the implications of her win and then made arrangements to claim her prize. The winner says she’ll be paying some bills and then she’s going to “load up my IRA.” Her usual lottery game plan is to buy lower priced tickets, both for herself and as gifts for family and friends, she told officials.