Lottery player unknowingly drives around with ticket worth six figures in his car

After winning a $100 scratch-off prize in the Maryland Lottery, a man put $20 of his winnings toward another game.

But he didn’t have time to play the 10 bingo cards on his Bonus Bingo X20 instant ticket, so he stashed it in his car and went on his way, lottery officials said in a Nov. 7 news release.

The Frederick County resident didn’t think about the unplayed ticket until he got homelater that day, officials said. Frederick County is about 45 miles west of Baltimore.

“He played the bingo cards and his eyes nearly deceived him, making him at first think he had a non-winning scratch-off,” officials said in the release.

He scanned the ticket on the Lottery mobile app to check, officials said.

“After giving the instant ticket a second look, he realized just how much he had missed,” officials said. “On bingo card number nine, he had four matches in a diamond shape for a $50,000 prize. On top of that, he had missed the x10 multiplier in the upper left corner of the scratch-off. When he realized he won $500,000, the happy man called his wife and kids into the garage and gave them the great news.”

The man plans to use his winnings to buy a new truck and pay off his mortgage, officials said.

“Almost as shocking as the win is the fact that he unknowingly drove around in a completely different state with a scratch-off worth half a million dollars in his possession!” officials said.

It was the winner’s second big prize in the Maryland Lottery. In 2008, he won $50,000 in the Bonus Match 5 game, officials said.

This story was originally published November 8, 2023 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Lottery player unknowingly drives around with ticket worth six figures in his car."

Brooke Baitinger

McClatchy DC

Brooke Baitinger is a former journalist for McClatchyDC.