Retired Sailor Plans Special Christmas With Lottery Winnings

GLEN BURNIE, MD — Mark Wagner of Glen Burnie is an avowed Maryland Lottery fan, playing different games each week from Pick 3 to scratch-offs. The retired sailor routinely plays all but one of the Lottery’s offerings – Racetrax.

“It’s not that I don’t like Racetrax, it’s just that for some reason I don’t end up playing often,” he told Maryland Lottery officials. That game he rarely plays just helped Mark sail off with his biggest Lottery win ever – $10,064.

The 63-year-old veteran of the U.S. Navy recently found himself at Buy N Go, a Lottery retailer at 13 Aquahart Road in Glen Burnie. “I bought a few tickets and had $2 in change coming back,” he said in a news release. “At that moment, I looked up and saw the Racetrax screen and decided to get two tickets. It really was a sudden impulse, I normally only play Racetrax once, maybe twice a month.”

On what turned out to be his winning ticket, Wagner placed a Trifecta quick-pick bet and got horses numbering 5, 10 and 12. The trio had to finish in first, second and third place in that exact order for him to win. While talking with another customer a few minutes later, Wagner again glanced at the game’s monitor.

“I saw that all three of my numbers had hit. It was stunning.” Believing that he’d won $200 with his Trifecta wager, he was floored when the cashier divulged the actual prize. “I couldn’t say anything for a moment or two, then blurted out, ‘Merry Christmas to me.’ ”

Several days after his big win, Wagner still had the holidays on his mind. He plans to pay a few bills with his prize and spend the rest of his winnings making Christmas extra special for his family. “I don’t think I’ll change my Lottery-playing too much in the future,” he reported. “But you can bet Racetrax will be a bigger part of it.”

For selling a winning Racetrax ticket over $10,000, Buy N Go earns a $100 bonus from the Lottery.

Photo: Glen Burnie’s Mark Wagner won his biggest Lottery prize ever with a quick-pick Racetrax ticket. Courtesy of the Maryland Lottery