Husband lets his wife discover Maryland lottery win. ‘We do everything together’

A Maryland couple has a sweet routine for their scratch-off lottery tickets.

He’ll buy the ticket and scratch off just enough to scan it and see if it’s a winner, he told Maryland Lottery officials. If it is, he’ll bring it home to his wife to finish the job.

“We do everything together,” he said in a Sept. 19 news release from the Maryland Lottery.

The forklift operator from Hyattsville, just outside of Washington, D.C., told lottery officials he normally brings his wife home $20 or $50 wins. One time, he even brought her a $100 win.

These hardly compare to the $50,000 top-prize win he brought home recently.

The 53-year-old buys instant lottery tickets several times a week, according to lottery officials.

“My wife usually sends a lunch with me, but when she doesn’t, I pick up a ticket when I get some food,” he said.

He stopped by a convenience store on his lunch break on a recent Monday and picked up a Power Spot Multiplier. He went through the motions of his usual practice of scratching off only the instant ticket’s prize-check area.

“That way, I can scan the ticket without scratching the whole thing,” he told officials. “If it’s a winner, I bring it home for my wife to scratch and be surprised by the prize.”

When he saw the $50,000 win, he couldn’t believe it, he said.

“I kept scanning it again and again to be sure and then once more,” he said.

He could barely get through the rest of the day before he could bring home the ticket to his wife to “discover,” he told officials.

When he got home, he told his wife he had a ticket for her to scratch. He told officials he was pretty sure she knew she was about to scratch off a win, but she had no idea just how much.

“I was very calm so she would not know something special was about to happen,” he said.

When she uncovered the win, she was stunned.

“She kept saying, ‘I can’t believe it happened to us,’” he told Maryland officials.

The Prince George’s County couple won the seventh top-prize in the Power Spot Multiplier game, which debuted in September 2022. Only one $50,000 top prize is still in circulation, according to lottery officials.

This story was originally published September 20, 2023 at 9:39 AM with the headline "Husband lets his wife discover Maryland lottery win. ‘We do everything together’."