Family Birthdates Lead to $10K Keno Win for Laurel Man

LAUREL, MD — Carlos Jimenez of Laurel has always been pretty lucky when it comes to winning small Maryland Lottery prizes. He’s claimed quite a few prizes totaling several hundred dollars and even won $1,000 on a bingo scratch-off.

Nothing prepared him for his most recent – and largest – win of $10,000 playing Keno.

“I was at the Shell station and saw a lot of people watching the Keno screen,” the 35-year-old father of two told the Maryland Lottery. “That’s why I decided to play, because I saw everyone else playing.”

The avid Lottery player’s favorite game is Mega Millions. He hadn’t played Keno in a couple of years until last Sunday, when he happened upon the crowd at Shell All Saints in Laurel. He played two rounds of Keno, selecting family birthdays as his six numbers and added the Super Bonus feature to his ticket to boost any prize. He matched all six numbers to capture the big prize.

“He originally thought he matched five numbers and won $1,000, which happens occasionally so I wasn’t really surprised,” said his wife, Katja. She accompanied him to Lottery headquarters to help claim the prize on the day of their 10th wedding anniversary. “During the night, he decided to go online to check the ticket again and that’s when he learned it was really a $10,000 win.”

Carlos kept news of the bigger prize to himself until the morning, saying that his wife would not have been too happy had he awakened her in the middle of the night. The couple plans to spend the prize on home improvements.

»PHOTO: Family birthdays lead to a $10,000 Keno win for Carlos Jimenez of Laurel. Courtesy of Maryland Lottery